Germany To Send Oxygen, Medical Aid To India Over COVID Crisis

Germany will send oxygen and medical aid to India in the coming days to help it tackle its COVID-19 crisis, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday.

India is suffering from a spike in

coronavirus infections, with the number of cases surging by 349,691 in the past 24 hours, the fourth straight day of record peaks. Hospitals are turning away patients after running out of medical oxygen.

“The second wave is currently rolling over India with unprecedented power. It was right that we acted quickly to stop the entry of the new mutation in Germany,” Maas told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

Germany has classified India as a coronavirus high incidence area and also put the country on a separate warning list for coronavirus variants.

From Monday onwards, Germans arriving from India will only be allowed to enter the country with a negative test result and will then have to begin a 14-day quarantine. Foreign travellers coming from India will no longer be allowed to enter Germany.

Mass said Germany would do its utmost to help India overcome the emergency.

A German defence ministry spokeswoman said the foreign ministry had asked the military to look into providing a mobile oxygen production facility as well as support to transport other emergency and relief goods to India.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday expressed her “sympathy over the terrible suffering” that the pandemic had brought to India.

“Germany stands in solidarity with India and is urgently preparing a mission of support,” Merkel said in a statement.

The European Commission has also said it aims to send oxygen and medicines to India after receiving a request from Delhi. (Full Story) Britain and the United States are also sending assistance including medical equipment.

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Mexican Minister Visits Russia, Vying To Bring Vaccine Production Home

Mexico’s top diplomat traveled to Moscow on Sunday for a visit with Russian officials, his office said, amid talks to hammer out plans for Mexico to bottle Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine domestically after delays in shipments.

The government is aiming to quicken its pace of vaccinations, with just more than 4% of its population of 126 million people fully inoculated.

Mexico has registered 214,947 deaths, the fourth most worldwide, and 2,328,391 infections from the pandemic. The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher.

Mexico’s state-run vaccine manufacturer, Birmex, is working with Russia on a plan to bottle Sputnik V in Mexico, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last week, just as Argentina produced test batches of the two-shot vaccine. read more

“Birmex is working jointly with Russian institutions so that Mexico can bottle the vaccine,” Ebrard told Russian media outlets on Friday. “There is already significant progress.”

Health ministry official Ruy Lopez told reporters on Sunday that the government’s aim is to ramp up distribution of Sputnik V not only in Mexico, but also other parts of Latin America.

Russia has shipped 1.1 million Sputnik V doses to Mexico to date, far fewer doses than those originally slated to have arrived by now.

Mexico’s Health Ministry said in late February it expected to receive 7.4 million doses of Sputnik V by April and an additional 16.6 million shots in May. Mexico has signed an agreement to acquire a total of 24 million doses.

Mexico is increasingly aiming to bottle vaccines domestically following delays from providers, and has already bottled 2.6 million shots of China’s CanSino vaccine.

It also plans to bottle AstraZeneca (AZN.L) shots using vaccine material produced in Argentina. But the first doses are not expected until May due to delays at the Mexican production laboratory.

Ebrard’s visit to Moscow will last through Wednesday and include a meeting with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

The minister will also visit China, India and the United States as part of his government’s efforts to make sure that its supply agreements for vaccines against COVID-19 are honored.

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