Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
India Gets Global Help For Ever-Worsening Covid Outbreak
Reuters: Medical Supplies Flow Into India As COVID-19 Deaths Near 200,000
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)
Bay Area News Group: Coronavirus-Ravaged India To Receive Help From California
California is sending “life-saving oxygen equipment” 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’s press office said in a statement. (Green, 4/26)
Reuters: Gilead To Ship 450,000 Remdesivir Vials To India As COVID-19 Cases Surge
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)
ABC News: How To Help India Amid COVID-19 Surge That's Devastating The Country
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 —
AP: Philippines Weighs Extending Lockdown As COVID Cases Top 1M
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’s 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)
Bloomberg: UNICEF To Take 1.3 Million Covid Shots From Congo Over Planning
The United Nations Children’s Fund will take 1.3 million doses from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 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’s 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)
Politico: Brussels Concedes Coronavirus Travel Rules Could Crumble
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is keen to help Americans with their holiday plans — 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’s regular daily news conference on Monday, officials acknowledged that the EU’s 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’s comments were premature, given that a discussion over changing the rules for external visitors has just gotten underway — and that it’s 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)
The Washington Post: New Human Rights Watch Report Says Israel Is Committing The Crime Of Apartheid
Israeli authorities are “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” 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)
