More than 40 countries, including US, Australia, New Zealand, European as well as neighbouring nations such as Bangladesh, Bhutan have committed to provide India with medical items and pharmaceutical products that the country urgently needs to battle the unprecedented rise in Covid-19 cases, foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Thursday.
Towards this, India has prioritised procuring key medical items including oxygen and pharmaceutical products such as remdesivir. “We have prioritised certain areas. Liquid oxygen is one of the areas that has been a priority. We've also seen the requirement for anything that produces oxygen, oxygen generators, oxygen concentrators, oxygen producing equipment, cryogenic tankers, transportation equipment for oxygen. We’ve also needed some urgent pharmaceutical products like remdesivir and tocilizumab,” Shringla said in a briefing.
Over the next few days and weeks, Shringla hopes the country will receive over 500 oxygen generating plants, more than 4,000 oxygen concentrators, over 10,000 oxygen cylinders, 17 oxygen cryogenic tankers, some of which have already come in. Apart from that, US-headquartered Gilead Sciences has offered 450,000 doses of antiviral drug Remdesivir and 300,000 doses of antiviral drug Favipiravir from Russia, and UAE.