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First UK aid arrives as coronavirus deaths mount

27 April 2021 19:20 (UTC +04:00)

Medical supplies from the UK arrived in India on Tuesday - the first international shipment aimed at stemming a devastating Covid-19 surge, APA reports citing BBC.

Ventilators and oxygen equipment landed in Delhi, but far more will be needed, with many hospitals overwhelmed and people waiting in the streets outside.

India recorded 320,000 new infections on Tuesday, and deaths are now close to 200,000 in total.

One health adviser called the aid for a nation of 1.3bn "a drop in the ocean".

Zarir Udwadia, who works in Mumbai hospitals and counsels the government, told the BBC's Today programme the currently pledged supplies would have limited effects. He said he was seeing "ward after ward full of patients struggling to breathe on ventilators of different forms and shapes".

Dr Udwadia said the complacency over getting vaccinated during the first wave had now given way to long lines of people outside medical centres jostling to get shots.

"Vaccine hesitancy has become vaccine desperation," he said.

Although India's statistics currently stand at 17.6 million cases and 197,500 deaths, some believe the real figures to be much higher. One investigation by NDTV found that over the past week in Delhi alone some 1,158 deaths may have gone unrecorded.