UK sends life-saving medical equipment to India to tackle COVID-19

In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom (UK) dispatched vital medical equipment to India. On Sunday, April 25, Britain announced to have sent more than 600 pieces of life-saving medical equipment to assist India's ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus. The UK government in the said assistance package consigned ventilators and oxygen concentrators from surplus stock to the Government of India. 

Earlier today, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab took to Twitter to establish the same. Tweet read,

The equipment is expected to reach Delhi early on Tuesday, their Foreign Office said. Further consignments are due to follow later this week. This took place after India began setting global records for the number of daily cases as per reports. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson exhibited his solidarity with India's ongoing tussle with COVID-19 securing apex heights in the country. He assured his aid to India to combat COVID-19 took to his Twitter handle and expressed,

According to a press release by the UK government, in total, nine airline container loads of supplies, including 495 oxygen concentrators, 120 non-invasive ventilators, and 20 manual ventilators, would be freighted to India by this week. These equipment are crucial in helping to save the lives of the most vulnerable in India. They ascertained that the UK government is working closely with that of India to identify further assistance that can be curated.

UK government shared that the oxygen concentrators in transit can extract oxygen from the air in the atmosphere so that it can be provided to COVID-19 patients. This takes the strain off hospital oxygen systems, thus, giving inflow of oxygen in situations where hospital oxygen supplies have conked off. 

COVID-19 update

COVID-19 cases worldwide on Sunday stood at 147,039,936. As many as 3,112,295 people have died of the disease and 124,688,054 have recovered. The US remains the worst-hit country with 32,788,504, followed by India, Brazil, France and Russia.

So far, India has reported 1,69,60,172 COVID-19 infections and currently has 26,82,751 active cases. About 2,767 people were reported dead as on Sunday, according to health ministry data, taking total COVID-19 fatalities to 1,92,311. Total number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 1,40,85,110, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.13 per cent, the data said.