US has provided over USD 500 million in COVID-19 relief to India: White House

The White House on Wednesday stated that the US has provided over USD 500 million in COVID-19 assistance to India adding it would soon make a determination on distribution of the 80 million vaccines to other countries.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said to members of the White House Foreign Press Group in a virtual press conference call, "To date, the United States has provided over USD 500 million in COVID relief to India, including contributions from the US federal and state governments, American companies and organizations and private citizens."

The Biden administration, she said, is now working to extend that assistance to other South Asian countries that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psaki responded to a question, "We've sent seven air shipments, including health supplies, oxygen, oxygen supplies, and 95 masks, rapid diagnostic tests and medicine. In terms of the 80 million doses (of COVID-19 vaccines), we know there's a great deal of interest in this, understandably 60 million of AstraZeneca and 20 million of three other approved vaccines. Right now, it is working through an interagency process."

The interagency team including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and those from the State Department have been deliberating to determine how the United States intends to distribute and share these COVID-19 vaccine doses. 

Psaki said, "Certainly, the plight of everything the people of India had been through is obviously on our minds… but there are also a range of countries and regions around the world that have been deeply impacted that are also in need. So, these are all factors. Hopefully we''ll have more on this in the coming days."

US Support for India at outset of COVID-19 Pandemic

The White House in their official statement stated that the US and India closely worked together to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The US COVID-19 assistance touched more than 9.7 million Indians across more than 20 states and union territories, providing life-saving treatments, disseminating public health messages to local communities; strengthening case-finding and surveillance, and mobilizing innovative financing mechanisms to bolster emergency preparedness.

Exponential hike in COVID-19 infections across India since the inception of the second wave has evidently overburdened Indian production sectors, the medical infrastructure, and thousands of frontline medical staff in the country. While COVID-19 management and curbs have been harder for India to attain, solidarity has been an outpouring from numerous countries. Amid ascending COVID-19 figures in India, media reports, and gutting images of collapsing medical infrastructure, several countries have been outpouring solidarity with India's ordeals. Previously, Ukraine, Israel, Netherlands, Romania on behalf of the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China, Singapore, Bhutan amongst few that have come forward in providing assistance to India in procuring tonnes of liquid medical oxygen, transporting mobile oxygen plants, drugs, and vaccine to cater as requirements against the destructive COVID-19 second-wave.