Published 18:17 IST, August 19th 2020
US hands over second shipment of 100 ventilators to India in fight against COVID-19
The US handed over the second batch of 100 new state-of-the-art ventilators to India on August 19 to assist the country in its battle against COVID-19.
The United States handed over the second batch of 100 new ventilators to India on August 19 to assist the country in its fight against coronavirus pandemic. The state-of-the-art ventilators have been donated through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), in coordination with the Government of India and the Indian Red Cross Society.
“We are very pleased to hand over the final tranche of 100 ventilators to India, fulfilling President Trump’s commitment to provide these critically needed supplies to support India’s pandemic response,” US Ambassador Kenneth Juster said in a statement.
The first shipment of 100 ventilators arrived in India on June 14 and have been deployed to support the care of COVID-19 patients at the eight regional All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The total donation of 200 ventilators builds on US-India collaboration in the health sector and the assistance that USAID has committed to India in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the US Embassy in India, USAID’s efforts have strengthened India’s health care system’s resilience, readiness, and response capacity in several high-burden states. The embassy said that a total of 3 million people in India have directly benefited from USAID support till August 7.
USAID has reportedly trained 40,700 health workers on best practices to integrate COVID-19 prevention and risk mitigation into essential health services and trained 46,000 frontline workers on risk communication. The embassy further added that the US agency has provided 950 health care facilities with support to increase social distancing, infection prevention control, and patient management.
“The United States continues to help friends and allies with pandemic response and leads the global response to combat COVID-19 through an All-of-America approach,” read the statement.
India records highest single-day increase
India reported a single-day spike of 64,531 new coronavirus cases on August 18, taking the total case tally 27,67,273. As many as 1,092 people lost their lives to the contagious disease, taking the total coronavirus-related death toll over 52,889. Ministry of Health announced that a total of 20,37,870 people have been cured/discharged/migrated from the highly contagious disease, taking the recovery rate to 73.64 per cent.
Updated 18:16 IST, August 19th 2020