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India's COVID Numbers Down Slightly, but Remain Near Record High

VOA News

   India's daily COVID statistics are downslightly butremainhigh.Thehealth
   ministry said Monday there were 366,161 new infections and 3,754 deaths
   caused by the coronavirus in theprevious24-hour period.

   Public health experts say they believe the new cases and deaths are
   undercounted.

   India has22.6 million COVID casesso far, according to the Johns Hopkins
   Coronavirus Resource Center.Only the U.S. has more
   infections,accounting for32.7 million ofthe world's 158.3 million COVID
   cases, the center reported.

   The highly infectious coronavirus variant first identified in India is
   reported to have been detected in Bangladesh, France, Thailand, U.K.
   and the U.S. state of Connecticut.

   There is growing concern in India about a fungal infection affecting
   COVIDpatientsandpeople who have recovered from
   thedisease.Mucormycosisis caused by mold and can affecta person'sfacial
   structureand in some cases cause blindness.COVIDpatients
   withdiabetesareparticularly susceptible tomucormycosis, medical experts
   said.

   Nepal,struggling to combat an outbreak of the pandemic,isrunning short
   of oxygen and oxygentanks.TheHimalayancountry hasasked Mount Everest
   climbersand guidesnot to abandon their oxygen cylinderson the mountain
   and instead bring them backdown so thatmedicalfacilitiescan fill them
   to give to COVID patients.

   Kul Bahadur Gurung, a senior official with the Nepal Mountaineering
   Association, told Reuters, "We appeal to climbers andSherpas[Himalayan
   people living around Nepal and Tibetandwell known for climbing
   mountains]to bring back their empty bottles wherever possible as they
   can be refilled and used for the treatment of the coronavirus patients
   who are in dire needs."
   Nepalese paramedics treat a COVID-19 patient outside an emergency ward
   of a government run hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, May 7, 2021.

   ANepalhealth ministry officialsaidthe country needs 25,000 oxygen
   tanksimmediately, speaking to Reuters.

   EUsummit, UScriticism

   On the second day of a summit in Portugal on Saturday, theEuropean
   Unionapproved a contract extension with Pfizer-BioNTech toprovideup to
   1.8 billionadditionaldoses of its vaccine through 2023.

   Pfizer has already provided the EU with 600 million doses, asrequiredin
   theinitialcontract.

   Also at the summit, the U.S. faced mounting criticism from EU leaders
   over President Joe Biden's surprise endorsement last week of lifting
   COVID-19 vaccine patents to make more doses available to poorer
   countries.

   "We don't think, in the short term, that it's the magic bullet," said
   EU Council President Charles Michel.

   Michel and other EU leaders said the U.S. should, instead, start
   boosting vaccine exports to have maximum impact on the global pandemic.

   "I'm very clearly urging the U.S. to put an end to the ban on exports
   of vaccines and on components of vaccines that are preventing them
   being produced," French President Emmanuel Macron said.

   The U.S., like Britain, has limited exports of domestically developed
   vaccines so it caninoculateits population first. The EU has become the
   world's leading vaccine provider, distributing about 200 million doses
   to the 27-nation bloc androughly anequal number tonearly 90countries
   around the world.

   Pope Francis said that he supports the temporary suspension of vaccine
   patents, according to news reports. He added that market forces,
   astheyrelate to vaccines, must not predominate.

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