The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said that the US is actively looking at ways to boost aid to India as it grapples with the surging coronavirus cases.
Dr.Fauci told ABC’s “This Week” show that several measures were being considered, including sending over oxygen supplies, COVID-19 test kits, drug treatments and personal protective equipment.
The outbreak in India adds to the pressure on US President Joe Biden to provide vaccines and aid to other countries. Biden has said that the US won’t begin doing so until it has enough supplies at home.
Fauci said Sunday that the US would review how to help increase India”s vaccine supply, such as by sending them doses or helping them “to essentially make vaccines themselves.”
He said, “Bottom line, it’s a terrible situation that’s going on in India and other lower middle-income countries, and there is more we can do.”
Earlier, Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla had taken to Twitter on April 16 and requested United States President Joe Biden to lift the embargo of raw material exports from the US. Appealing to POTUS on behalf of the vaccine industry apart from the US, Poonawalla had said that by lifting the embargo, the vaccine production amid the COVID-19 pandemic could be “ramp[ed] up”. The SII CEO had also said that the Biden administration already has the details required to make the move which can contribute to better the situation amid the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic which has rocked several nations, months after it first began.
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