As COVID continues to wreak havoc in India, New Delhi has asked Jerusalem for help in the form of oxygen and medicine.
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An official in the Indian Embassy in Israel told Israel Hayom that his country wants to secure medical equipment, and had reached out to "all its friends, including Israel."
"The situation is a challenging one, but it is something we will overcome," the official said.
The Indian representative said that every country or continent had battled a massive second or third wave of COVID, but that there were a few encouraging signs that the numbers were declining.
"We are still second in the world in terms of the number of daily vaccinations, after the US. Our average for the past seven days is 2.6 million [vaccinations], compared to 2.9 million in the US. Starting next Saturday, we will make the vaccine available to everyone age 18 and over. Thus far, we have vaccinated 140 million people, or 14% of the all vaccinations administered worldwide."
The official said that approximately 10% of India's population has been vaccinated.
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The management of Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv has reached out to the health and foreign ministries about dispatching a shipment of medical equipment and personnel to help India beat back the COVID wave. Sourasky Director Professor Ronni Gamzu said, "In my opinion, it is the moral and correct thing to do at this time. We cannot celebrate life while on the other side of the world bodies are being burned. We at Ichilov [Sourasky] are willing to help immediately with anything needed to save lives."
Meanwhile, the situation in India continues to worsen. In the past 24 hours, 346,000 new cases have been reported, along with over 2,600 deaths.
These are the highest numbers India has seen since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020.
Five states account for 54% of all COVID cases in India, and crematoria are overwhelmed with bodies. Experts estimate that the true COVID death toll could be 20 times higher than the official tally of 190,000.
