Switzerland to send medical aid to help India fight COVID-19 crisis

In an attempt to alleviate India’s health crisis, Switzerland on Wednesday said it will dispatch emergency medical aid that includes oxygen concentrators and essential equipment like ventilators for the hospitals.  Swiss Embassy in India said in an update that the country was preparing to send the Swiss humanitarian aid which consists of medical supply to tackle India’s mounting caseload of coronavirus from the second wave, which is seeing more hospitalizations. The medical assistance sent by Switzerland will “include oxygen concentrators, ventilators, and other medical equipment. This material will be distributed with the support of the Indian Red Cross Society. Switzerland stands in solidarity with India in these challenging times," the embassy said. 

India has been scrambling to provide assistance to all patients that needed the medical intervention but the healthcare systems have been pushed to the brink of their maximum capacities due to the deadlier wave blamed in part on the new "double mutant" variant, known as B.1.617. As the administrations buckled to make the Oxygen available to the overwhelmed hospitals, as many as 190,000 people have succumbed so far due to the overcrowding and tsunami of patients at the healthcare centers looking for ICU beds or oxygen. Help from the European Union, UK, and UAE arrived in India to stem the impact of the devastating surge of variant hit, compounded by depleting availability of oxygen. 

EU activates  'Civil Protection Mechanism' to help

As the situation spiralled due to cases adding up in lakhs every single day, the European Union activated its Civil Protection Mechanism, saying that it was coordinating with member states to ship oxygen and medicine to India. Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen earlier said she was "alarmed by the epidemiological situation in India. We are ready to support."

"The EU is pooling resources to respond rapidly to India's request for assistance," she added. Meanwhile Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel also said that Germany "stands in solidarity with India and is urgently preparing a mission of support.” She added, "To the people of India I want to express my sympathy for the terrible suffering that COVID-19 has again brought to your communities. The fight against the pandemic is our common fight.” UK’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab said that he had dispatched 600 pieces of medical equipment, including ventilators and oxygen concentrators to help India fight its battle.