Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
India Gets Global Help For Ever-Worsening Covid Outbreak
Vital medical supplies poured into India on Tuesday as hospitals starved of oxygen supplies and beds turned away coronavirus patients, while a surge in infections pushed the death toll towards 200,000.Supplies from Britain, including 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, arrived in Delhi, said Reuters partner ANI, while France is sending oxygen generators able to provide 250 patients with a year's supply of the gas, its embassy said. (Jain, Jamkhandikar and Miglani, 4/27)
California is sending 鈥渓ife-saving oxygen equipment鈥 to India to help the country contend with a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday. As early as Tuesday, the state will ship out 440 oxygen cylinders, 275 oxygen concentrators, 240 oxygen regulators, 210 pulse oximeters and one deployable oxygen concentrator system, or DOCs, the governor鈥檚 press office said in a statement. (Green, 4/26)
Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) said on Monday it will give India at least 450,000 vials of its antiviral drug remdesivir and help boost production, as the world's second-most populous country reels from surging coronavirus cases. Remdesivir is approved in India for restricted emergency use to treat severe COVID-19 cases, but hospitals are facing supply shortages due to indiscriminate use and the drug is being sold at over 10 times its listed price in the black market. (4/27)
As India faces an overwhelming surge of record-breaking COVID-19 cases and deaths, humanitarian organizations are offering ways to help the country in dire need of resources. Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), a global humanitarian agency that helps in delivering emergency relief, has been working with its India chapter to provide on-the-ground resources during the crisis. (Yamada, 4/26)
In other global developments 鈥
Coronavirus infections surged past 1 million in the Philippines on Monday as officials assess whether to extend a monthlong lockdown in the Manila region amid a grim spike in cases or relax it to fight a recession, joblessness and hunger. The Department of Health reported 8,929 new infections on Monday, bringing the country鈥檚 total to 1,006,428, including 16,853 deaths. The totals are the second highest in Southeast Asia after Indonesia. (Gomez and Favila, 4/27)
The United Nations Children鈥檚 Fund will take 1.3 million doses from the Democratic Republic of Congo鈥檚 delivery of 1.7 million doses and redistribute them to other African countries to avoid their expiration. The vaccines donated by the Covax facility will expire on June 24, Susie Villeneuve, UNICEF鈥檚 Regional Adviser for Health Systems Strengthening, West and Central Africa, said at a conference in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, which she joined by video call. (Dontoh, 4/26)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is keen to help Americans with their holiday plans 鈥 but she's playing catch-up with EU governments who are already doing their own thing.A number of EU countries are breaking away from jointly adopted guidelines on pandemic travel, as some capitals rush to reopen for summer tourists. ... At the Commission鈥檚 regular daily news conference on Monday, officials acknowledged that the EU鈥檚 travel rules were merely a recommendation that national capitals could ignore, and were also under no obligation to notify Brussels of any deviations. And they acknowledged that von der Leyen鈥檚 comments were premature, given that a discussion over changing the rules for external visitors has just gotten underway 鈥 and that it鈥檚 not yet clear the epidemiological situation justifies adding the U.S. to the list of countries from which nonessential travel to the EU is permissible. (Herszenhorn and Barigazzi, 4/26)
Israeli authorities are 鈥渃ommitting the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,鈥 according to a major new 213-page report released Tuesday by global advocacy group Human Rights Watch. The organization argued that, in terms framed by existing international law, overarching Israeli policy toward Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constituted an agenda to both maintain Jewish Israeli domination and systematically oppress Palestinians. (Tharoor, 4/27)