Medical workers and volunteers prepare to receive patients with the new coronavirus outside a purpose-built hospital in New Delhi. (May 10, 2021)
A new coronavirus variant circulating in India is of global concern, the World Health Organization said Monday (May 10).
“We define it as a variant that is of global concern,” Maria van Kirkhoff, WHO’s lead technical expert on 2019 coronavirus disease, said at a briefing. “Certain available information indicates increased infectivity.”
India’s daily count of new coronavirus infections declined slightly but remained high. India’s health ministry said Monday there were 366,161 new infections and 3,754 deaths due to the new coronavirus during the past 24 hours. Public health experts say they believe the actual number of new and dead cases is higher than the statistics.
According to figures from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, India has 22.6 million cases of new coronavirus (CCA virus) infections so far, and only the United States has more infections than India, at 32.7 million. The center reports that there are 158.3 million cases of infection worldwide.
A certain fungal infection suffered by people with neocoronavirus in India, as well as those who recover, is causing increasing concern. The infection, known as trichomycosis, is caused by a mold that can affect the patient’s facial structure and in some cases cause blindness. Medical experts say people with coronavirus disease who have diabetes are particularly vulnerable to contracting trichinosis.
Nepal, which is struggling to cope with the outbreak, is currently running out of oxygen and oxygen cylinders. The Himalayan country has asked climbers who have climbed Mount Everest (known as Mount Everest in China) not to discard used oxygen cylinders on the mountain, but to bring them back so that medical facilities can use them for oxygen and rescue patients with the new coronavirus disease.
A Nepalese health ministry official told Reuters that Nepal needs 25,000 oxygen cylinders immediately.
EU summit criticizes U.S. support for abandoning vaccine patents to boost
On Saturday, the day after a summit in Portugal, the European Union approved a contract renewal with Pfizer-BioNTech to supply up to 1.8 billion more doses of vaccines throughout 2023.
Pfizer has already provided 600 million doses of vaccines to the EU under the initial contract.
Separately, the U.S. has come under increasing criticism from EU leaders at the summit. U.S. President Joe Biden’s surprise support last week for the cancellation of patents on the New Crown vaccine so that poorer countries could get more vaccines drew the ire of EU leaders.
“We don’t see this as a panacea in the short term,” said European Council President Charles Michel.
What the U.S. should do, Michel and other EU leaders said, is start expanding vaccine exports to have the greatest effect on the global fight against the epidemic.
“I urge the United States very clearly to end the bans on exports of vaccines and vaccine components that are blocking production,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
The United States, like the United Kingdom, has imposed export restrictions on domestically developed vaccines in order to prioritize vaccination of its own population. The European Union has become the world’s leading provider of vaccines, distributing some 200 million doses to the bloc’s 27 member states and roughly equal amounts to nearly 90 countries around the world.
According to media reports, Pope Francis said he supports the suspension of vaccine patents. He added that market forces cannot be allowed to dominate when it comes to vaccines.
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