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The United States will make more medical aid available to India in an effort to fight an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases. The pledge came during a phone call between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval on Sunday, as India has become the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic and the country's health system is collapsing. "Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need," National Security Council Spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement, which went on to say that the U.S. will allow for the export of certain raw material urgently needed for vaccine production, as well as sending test kits, ventilators and personal protective equipment, among other aid. (Lonsdorf, 4/25)

“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need,” Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement on Sunday. (Rogers and Stolberg, 4/25)

India reported a record number of Covid-19 cases for the fifth straight day on Monday while the official death toll also jumped. Official data showed there were 352,991 new reported cases over a 24-hour period as total infection numbers crossed 17 million. At least 2,812 people died which pushed the total death toll to over 195,000 — media reports suggest that the official death rate is likely undercounted. (Choudhury, 4/26)

White House officials on Friday warned that the current coronavirus crisis in India is an example of what could happen elsewhere should the pandemic go uncontrolled. White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients made the warning during a coronavirus briefing on Friday. "This is a global pandemic. And India demonstrates the risk of what can happen if we don't get the pandemic under control everywhere," he said, adding the country serves as a prime example of "why we made the biggest investment in COVAX." (Farber, 4/24)

A half-milliliter dose of a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford began its life here in a 1,500-liter metal tank, along with millions of others in batch number 4120Z017, months before it was approved for use. The tank—one of the bioreactors used to grow the cells to make vaccines—produces millions of doses at a time. Bioreactors are the workhorses of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker. The Institute started making and stockpiling doses as soon as it got the formula and tiny seed vial of material used to grow the vaccine from AstraZeneca in May. (Bellman and Dayal, 4/25)

Victor Guevara knows people his age have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in many countries. His own relatives in Houston have been inoculated. But the 72-year-old Honduran lawyer, like so many others in his country, is still waiting. And increasingly, he is wondering why the United States is not doing more to help, particularly as the American vaccine supply begins to outpace demand and doses that have been approved for use elsewhere in the world, but not in the U.S., sit idle. (Gonzalez and Miller, 4/24)

More than two million petitions were sent to the White House in hopes of convincing the Biden administration to support a proposal that would temporarily waive trade agreement provisions in a bid to widen access to Covid-19 vaccines in low and middle-income countries. The effort was promoted by several U.S. lawmakers and dozens of advocacy groups amid ongoing controversy over the proposal, which was introduced last fall at the World Trade Organization. Since then, however, the effort has stalled amid push back by the pharmaceutical industry and some wealthy nations, including the U.S., over concerns that intellectual property rights will be compromised. (Silverman, 4/23)