Just a few weeks ago, it was wrongly believed that the country had stood up well to the pandemic, especially since India, which has become “the world’s pharmacy”, contributes 60% to the global production of vaccines and more than 43% of generic drugs used in the world. But the country of paradoxes seems to confirm this appellation once again.
The pandemic’s surge is being driven in part by a “double mutant,” the new variant that is now raising concerns in India and elsewhere because it is believed to carry two particularly potent and antibody-resistant mutations. One of them could be capable of driving increased transmission, scientists say.
B.1.617, the latest addition to the coronavirus family, was first spotted in October 2020 in Nagpur near the economic capital, Mumbai. An appearance that, according to experts, did not alert the authorities in time. The result: a major health crisis that has dealt a devastating blow to the already exhausted health system.
India, the fourth most bereaved country (behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico), has now surpassed 200,000 deaths. It reported again on Wednesday an alarming new daily tally of infections of 360,000.
“More than heartbreaking!” This is how the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) described the pandemic situation in this Asian country.
Frightening scenes illustrate the gravity of the situation
In New Delhi and Mumbai, the two cities hardest hit by the pandemic, the growing number of deaths is forcing authorities to resort to mass cremations to perform the final rituals of the victims, who are placed side by side in hospital morgues.
A senior municipal official in Delhi said he was seeing a 15% increase in funerals every day, and existing venues were already stretched to capacity.
Queues of Covid patients and their worried relatives are growing outside hospitals in the Indian megacity. Some hospitals have two patients per bed, others are on the floor, while key antiviral drugs are out of stock.
Overwhelmed by Covid, cities are running out of medical oxygen, beds and ambulances. In a most surreal incident, the two sons of a woman in her fifties were forced to transport their mother’s body to the crematorium on a motorbike due to the unavailability of ambulances at the hospital.
Another image that has gone viral on social media is of a wife trying in vain to save her deceased husband using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Local media consider that the official figures of daily deaths represent only a fraction of the reality, because they do not correspond to the activity of the crematoria.
Health measures deemed too lax
The question on everyone’s lips is how the country got to this point, given that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured in January that “we have not only solved our problems, but also helped the world defeat the pandemic.”
Indeed, India currently has around 18 million cases. Figures that could be higher according to experts who attribute this new wave to the “double mutation” of the virus but also to mass events, such as the Khumb Mela religious festival which brought together millions of Hindu pilgrims without masks or respect for social distancing.
In India, where overcrowding is the rule, people have failed to take the severity of the virus seriously. For example, the fallout from political rallies that accompanied state elections in the states of Assam and Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry has literally stretched the health system to its limits.
Observers said it was very clear that India was heading for a very severe second wave, and yet there was no action.
And to make up for the situation, hoping that it is not too late, the government has reimposed drastic health measures and announced the opening of vaccination to all adults from May 1, although the world’s leading vaccine producer is still struggling to supply vaccines to all federal states.
Seeking to vaccinate most of its population, India has blocked exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured on its soil by the Serum Institute of India (SII), and recently decided to accelerate emergency approvals of all anti-Covid-19 vaccines that have been authorized by Western countries and Japan.
2024-09-20 19:15:29