Tag Archives: India

India’s Gujarat state evacuates over 200,000 people as cyclone hits

By Sumit Khanna

AHMEDABAD (Reuters) -More than 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the Indian state of Gujarat and authorities shut ports and major airports as the most powerful cyclone in more than two decades made landfall in the state late on Monday.

Rain intensified and several incidents of power outages were reported in the state. Electricity pylons and trees were uprooted and buildings were damaged in coastal areas of Gujarat, state authorities said.

With the worst of the storm expected to last for several hours after it slammed into the state’s coast, it piles more pressure on Indian authorities already struggling with a huge caseload of COVID-19 infections.

“This cyclone is a terrible double blow for millions of people in India whose families have been struck down by record COVID infections and deaths. Many families are barely staying afloat,” said Udaya Regmi, South Asia head of delegation, International Federation of Red Cross.

The cyclone has already killed at least 16 people and left a trail of destruction as it brushed past the coastal states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, the authorities said.

“The landfall process has started, and it is expected to last for four hours. The intensity of the Cyclone Tauktae will go down once it is over,” Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said in a social media address on late Monday evening.

State revenue secretary Pankaj Kumar told Reuters it would be the most severe cyclone to hit Gujarat in at least 20 years. A 1998 cyclone killed at least 4,000 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Gujarat.

Regmi said the Indian Red Cross Emergency team was working with authorities and helping with the evacuations from low lying areas to relief centers further inland in the face of what he called a “monster storm”.

PRAYING FOR LIONS

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) categorized the storm, which formed in the Arabian Sea, as an “extremely severe” storm, upgrading it from “very severe”.

The cyclone brought gusts of up to 210 kph (130 mph) that would put it on par with a Category 3 hurricane, one level below the IMD’s super cyclone category.

Further down India’s western coast, the cyclone has lashed India’s financial hub of Mumbai, forcing authorities to suspend operations at the city’s airport and to close some main roads due to flooding. Tracks on Mumbai’s urban rail system, one of the world’s busiest, were also flooded.

Two barges with over 400 people on board were adrift near the Mumbai coastline and vessels were sent to provide help, said the local branch of India’s defense ministry.

As well as the 16 deaths reported in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, more than 25 fishing boats were missing, a coastguard official told Reuters.

The Gujarat Maritime Board, the state’s port regulator, directed hoisting of signals VIII to X, indicating great danger, at ports in the state. India’s largest private port at Mundra suspended operations for the day.

Authorities also fretted about the state’s Asiatic lions, an endangered species found only in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat where the cyclone is expected to inflict most damage.

“There are around 40 lions in some patches in coastal Saurashtra, and we are monitoring them. Some lions have already moved to higher grounds. We are keeping fingers crossed, and praying the lions will be safe,” Shyamal Tikadar, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Gujarat, told Reuters.

Rupani said all measures were being taken to deal with the situation.

“These are special circumstances. The administration is busy with the COVID-19 challenges, and is now gearing up to deal with the impact of the cyclone,” he added.

Gujarat and Mumbai both suspended their vaccination drives on Monday due to the cyclone.

(Reporting by Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad, Rajendra Jadhav and Aishwarya Nair in Mumbai; Writing by Nupur Anand; Editing by Euan Rocha, Robert Birsel, Gareth Jones and Alison Williams)

India ‘on war footing’ as coronavirus infections pass 24 million

By Tanvi Mehta and Shilpa Jamkhandikar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded the alarm over the rapid spread of COVID-19 through India’s vast countryside on Friday, as 4,000 people died from the virus for the third straight day and total infections crossed 24 million.

India is in the grip of the highly transmissible B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus, first detected there and now appearing across the globe. Modi said his government was “on a war footing” to try to contain it.

“The outbreak is reaching rural areas with great speed,” he said, addressing farmers in a virtual conference. “I want to once again warn all … those who live in villages about corona.”

Although about two-thirds of Indians live in rural towns and villages where healthcare facilities are limited, it was the first time Modi has specifically referred to the virus’s spread through the countryside since a second wave erupted in February.

“All departments of the government, all resources, our armed forces, our scientists, everyone is working day and night to counter COVID, together,” he said.

Eid festivities celebrated by India’s around 200 million Muslims to mark the end of Ramadan were generally subdued on Friday. Most states have imposed full or partial lockdowns and many mosques were either shut or following social distancing measures during prayers.

“The good thing is that everyone is following and celebrating Eid inside their homes,” Maulana Khalid Rashid, a cleric in the city of Lucknow, told ANI news agency, a partner of Reuters.

Television has broadcast images of families weeping over the dead in rural hospitals or camping in wards to tend the sick, while bodies have washed up in the Ganges as crematoriums are overwhelmed and wood for funeral pyres is in short supply.

Medical journal The Lancet said restrictions on movement along with international support measures were urgently needed to stem “an unprecedented public health crisis”.

Modi has been under pressure to impose a national lockdown, though on Thursday the president of the Public Health Foundation of India questioned whether that would be effective in India.

“We recognize … the anxieties that are displayed by international observers… but you can’t wrap all of India into one blanket,” K. Srinath Reddy told a panel discussion.

Health ministry data recorded 4,000 deaths and 343,144 new infections over the last 24 hours, below last week’s peak of 414,188. Total infections since the pandemic struck India more than a year ago crossed 24 million, with 262,317 dead. Experts say the true figures are much higher, with a lack of access to tests and treatment meaning many cases go uncounted.

Modi has faced criticism over his leadership during the pandemic, having allowed a huge Hindu gathering to take place in northern India in February and addressed political rallies in April, blamed for spreading the virus to rural areas.

FAST-SPREADING VARIANT

The fast-spreading variant first found in India has caused alarm around the globe. It has led to big outbreaks in neighboring states such as Nepal, and has also been detected far afield in Britain, the Americas and elsewhere in Asia.

Yamini Mishra, Asia-Pacific director of rights group Amnesty International, said the virus was “spreading and transcending borders at a frightening speed” and would hit the region’s most marginalized populations hardest.

The catastrophe unfolding in India and Nepal should also be a warning to other countries the region “to invest heavily in surge capacity for an emergency response,” she said.

Modi allowed all Indian adults to request vaccines from May 1. But while India is the world’s largest vaccine producer, the huge demand has left it low on stocks and vaccinations have slowed down.

As of Friday, it had fully vaccinated just over 39.4 million people, or around 2.9% of the population. The government has promised to accelerate the vaccine program dramatically in coming months.

More than 2 billion doses of vaccine are likely to be available between August and December, government adviser V.K. Paul told reporters. Those would include 750 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is made by Serum Institute of India, as well as 550 million of Covaxin, developed by domestic producer Bharat Biotech.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd said a first batch of Sputnik V vaccine imported from Russia received regulatory clearance on Thursday and the first dose was administered on Friday as part of a pilot.

(Additional reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra and Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and John Stonestreet; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Simon Cameron-Moore and Peter Graff)

Exclusive-India’s most populous state to spend up to $1.36 billion on COVID shots amid shortage

By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s most populous state will spend up to $1.36 billion to buy COVID-19 shots and held early talks this week with companies such as Pfizer and the local partner of the maker of Russia’s Sputnik V, a state official said on Thursday.

The move by Uttar Pradesh, home to more people than Brazil, comes as many Indian states curtail vaccinations due to severe shortages amid a record surge in coronavirus infections, with India recording more than 4,000 deaths for a second straight day as its health system fails to cope.

Uttar Pradesh has also held pre-bid talks with Indian vaccine companies the Serum Institute of India (SII) – licensed to make the AstraZeneca and Novavax shots – Bharat Biotech and Cadila Healthcare as part of a global tender to buy 40 million doses over the next few months, state spokesman Navneet Sehgal told Reuters.

He said Johnson & Johnson could also confirm their participation in the tender by late Thursday via email. Sputnik V’s local distributor, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, has also held talks.

“Money is not an issue, we have a huge budget,” said Sehgal, a senior bureaucrat in the state of 240 million people. “We will spend up to 100 billion rupees ($1.36 billion).”

He said funds would have to be diverted from other areas to buy the vaccines.

Dr. Reddy’s and Bharat Biotech declined to comment. Pfizer, J&J, SII and Cadila did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Uttar Pradesh has also separately ordered 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

“WHERE IS ‘INDIA’?”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened vaccinations to all adults from May 1, doubling the number of people eligible to an estimated 800 million, though domestic production will stay largely flat at about 80 million a month until July.

The result is that several states now plan to launch global supply tenders individually. Reuters earlier reported that the federal government would not import vaccines itself.

“Indian states left to compete/fight with each other in international market,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Twitter.

“Where is ‘India’? Portrays such a bad image of India. India, as one country, should procure vaccines on behalf of all Indian states.”

Modi’s office and the health ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

COVID-19 immunizations in the country in the past week have hit levels last seen in mid-March when India did fewer than 2 million doses a day and vaccinations were limited to only health and front-line workers.

The country has administered nearly 179 million doses, the most after China and the United States, but has given the required two doses to only 3% of its 1.35 billion people.

Vinod Kumar Paul, a top government official leading India’s response to the pandemic, told a news briefing vaccine supplies would improve significantly from August. He said more than 2 billion locally made doses may be available between August and December.

That includes 750 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 200 million of Novavax, both via SII. Others include 156 million doses of Sputnik V and shots developed by Indian companies such as Biological E.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Aishwarya Nair, Tanvi Mehta, Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Anuron Kumar Mitra and Sumit Khanna; Editing by Nick Macfie and Catherine Evans)

‘A hell out here’: COVID-19 ravages rural India

By Danish Siddiqui and Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s coronavirus death toll crossed 250,000 on Wednesday in the deadliest 24 hours since the pandemic began, as the disease rampaged through the countryside, leaving families to weep over the dead in rural hospitals or camp in wards to tend the sick.

Boosted by highly infectious variants, the second wave erupted in February to inundate hospitals and medical staff, as well as crematoriums and mortuaries. Experts still cannot say for sure when the figures will peak.

Indian state leaders clamored for vaccines to stop the second wave and the devastation that it has wrought, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop exporting vaccines, ramp up production and help them procure urgent supplies from overseas.

“People will die in the same way in the third and fourth waves as they have this time” without more vaccines, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told reporters.

Deaths grew by a record 4,205 while infections rose 348,421 in the 24 hours to Wednesday, taking the tally past 23 million, health ministry data showed. Experts believe the actual numbers could be five to 10 times higher.

Funeral pyres have blazed in city parking lots, and bodies have washed up on the banks of the holy river Ganges, immersed by relatives whose villages were stripped bare of the wood needed for cremations.

Lacking beds, drugs and oxygen, many hospitals in the world’s second-most populous nation have been forced to turn away droves of sufferers.

“We seem to be plateauing around 400,000 cases a day,” the Indian Express newspaper quoted virologist Shahid Jameel as saying. “It is still too early to say whether we have reached the peak.”

‘HERE AND NOW’

India is using the AstraZeneca vaccine made at the Serum Institute in the western city of Pune and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech but has fully vaccinated barely 2.5% of the population.

Indians need vaccines “here and now”, the chief minister of West Bengal state, Mamata Banerjee, said in a letter to Modi.

The country accounts for half of COVID-19 cases and 30% of deaths worldwide, the World Health Organization said in its latest weekly report.

The full impact of the B.1.617 variant found in India, which the WHO has designated as being of global concern, is not yet clear, it added.

The variant has been detected in six countries in the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization said, adding that it was worried that it was highly transmissible.

Britain, which has also detected the variant, is looking at all possible solutions to tackle a surge of related cases, including in the northern English town of Bolton, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament.

RURAL SPREAD

Daily infections are shooting up in the Indian countryside in comparison to big towns, where they have slowed after last month’s surge, experts say.

More than half the cases this week in the western state of Maharashtra were in rural areas, up from a third a month ago. That share is nearly two-thirds in the most populous, and mainly rural, state of Uttar Pradesh, government data showed.

Television showed images of people weeping over the bodies of loved ones in ramshackle rural hospitals while others camped in wards tending to the sick.

A pregnant woman was taking care of her husband who had breathing difficulties in a hospital in Bhagalpur in the eastern state of Bihar, which is seeing a case surge its health system could barely have handled at the best of times.

“There is no doctor here, she sleeps the whole night here, taking care of her husband,” the woman’s brother told India Today television.

In a corridor outside, two sons were wailing over the body of their father, saying repeatedly that he could have been saved if only he had been given a bed in an intensive care unit.

At the general hospital in Bijnor, a town in northern Uttar Pradesh, a woman lay in a cot next to a garbage can and medical waste.

“How can someone get treated if the situation is like this?” asked her son, Sudesh Tyagi. “It is a hell out here.”

(Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Aishwarya Nair in Mumbai, Tanvi Mehta in New Delhi, Subrata Nagchoudhary in Kolkata and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Clarence Fernandez, Mark Heinrich and Giles Elgood)

Bodies float down Ganges as nearly 4,000 more die of COVID in India

By Saurabh Sharma

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) -Scores of bodies are washing up on the banks of the Ganges as Indians fail to keep pace with the deaths and cremations of around 4,000 people a day from the novel coronavirus.

India currently accounts for one in three of the reported deaths from coronavirus around the world, according to a Reuters tally, and its health system is overwhelmed, despite donations of oxygen cylinders and other medical equipment from around the world.

Rural parts of India not only have more rudimentary healthcare, but are now also running short of wood for traditional Hindu cremations.

Authorities said on Tuesday they were investigating the discovery of scores of bodies found floating down the Ganges in two separate states.

“As of now it is very difficult for us to say where these dead bodies have come from,” said M P Singh, the top government official in Ghazipur district, in Uttar Pradesh.

Akhand Pratap, a local resident, said that “people are immersing bodies in the holy Ganges river instead of cremation because of shortage of cremation wood.”

Even in the capital, New Delhi, many COVID victims are abandoned by their relatives after cremation, leaving volunteers to wash the ashes, pray over them, and then take them to scatter into the river in the holy city of Haridwar, 180 km (110 miles) away.

“Our organization collects these remains from all the crematoriums and performs the last rituals in Haridwar so that they can achieve salvation,” said Ashish Kashyap, a volunteer from the charity Shri Deodhan Sewa Samiti.

QUARTER OF A MILLION DEAD

The seven-day average of daily infections hit a record 390,995 on Tuesday, with 3,876 deaths, according to the health ministry.

Official COVID-19 deaths, which experts say are almost certainly under-reported, stand at just under a quarter of a million.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that it regarded the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.

Late that day, 11 people died in the government SVR Ruia hospital in the southern city of Tirupati because a tanker carrying oxygen arrived late.

“There were issues with oxygen pressure due to low availability. It all happened within a span of five minutes,” said M Harinarayan, the district’s senior civil servant.

Vaccines are also running short, especially in Maharashtra state around the financial center of Mumbai, and in the capital, Delhi, two of India’s hardest-hit regions.

“We are ready to buy doses, but they are not available right now,” Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope told reporters.

India’s second wave of the pandemic has increased calls for a nationwide lockdown and prompted more and more states to impose tougher restrictions that have hurt businesses and the wider economy.

Production of the Apple iPhone 12 at a Foxconn factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu has slumped by more than half because workers have been infected with COVID-19, two sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Anuron Kumar Mitra, Kannaki Deka, Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Sudarshan Varadhan in Chennai, Rajendra Jadhav in Satara, Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow and Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Alasdair Pal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Kevin Liffey)

‘Black fungus’ complication adds to India’s COVID woes

By Manas Mishra and Kannaki Deka

BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Indian government has told doctors to look out for signs of mucormycosis or “black fungus” in COVID-19 patients as hospitals report a rise in cases of the rare but potentially fatal infection.

The state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said at the weekend that doctors treating COVID-19 patients, diabetics and those with compromised immune systems should watch for early symptoms including sinus pain or nasal blockage on one side of the face, one-sided headache, swelling or numbness, toothache and loosening of teeth.

The disease, which can lead to blackening or discoloration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing blood, is strongly linked to diabetes. And diabetes can in turn be exacerbated by steroids such as dexamethasone, used to treat severe COVID-19.

“There have been cases reported in several other countries – including the UK, U.S., France, Austria, Brazil and Mexico, but the volume is much bigger in India,” said David Denning, a professor at Britain’s Manchester University and an expert at the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (GAFFI) charity.

“And one of the reasons is lots and lots of diabetes, and lots of poorly controlled diabetes.”

India has not published national data on mucormycosis but has said there is no major outbreak. Media reports have pointed to cases in Maharashtra and its capital Mumbai, and Gujarat.

Aparna Mukherjee, a scientist at ICMR, said: “It’s not something to panic about, but you have to be aware of when to seek consultation.”

But it is a complication that India’s overwhelmed hospitals, desperately short of beds as well as the oxygen needed for severely ill COVID-19 patients, could do without.

Arunaloke Chakrabarti, head of the Center of Advanced Research in Medical Mycology in the Indian city of Chandigarh and an adviser to GAFFI, said that even before COVID-19, mucormycosis was more common in India than in most countries, “partly because of the millions who have diabetes”.

He said serious cases might require specific antifungal therapy and several operations.

P Suresh, head of ophthalmology at Fortis Hospital in Mulund, Mumbai, said his hospital had treated at least 10 such patients in the past two weeks, roughly twice as many as in the entire year before the pandemic.

All had been infected with COVID-19 and most were diabetic or had received immunosuppressant drugs. Some had died, and some had lost their eyesight, he said. Other doctors spoke of a similar surge in cases.

“Previously if I saw one patient a year, I now see about one a week,” said Nishant Kumar, a consultant ophthalmologist at Hinduja hospital in Mumbai, noting the potential for contamination of oxygen pipes and humidifiers in hospitals.

Denning called it a “triple whammy”. “You’ve got a high rate of mucormycosis, you’ve got a lot of steroids – maybe too much – being used, and then you’ve got diabetes which is not being well controlled or managed.”

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Kannaki Deka in Bengaluru and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Britain labels coronavirus “variant of concern” linked to travel from India

By Alistair Smout and Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) -British health officials on Friday labelled a coronavirus variant first found in India a “variant of concern” due to evidence it spreads more easily, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying the situation needed careful handling.

Public Health England designated variant B.1.617.2, one of three variants identified in India that has spread to Britain, a variant of concern. Surge testing was being carried out in areas where evidence indicates community spread.

Cases of the B.1.617.2 variant increased to 520 from 202 over the last week, PHE said, mainly in London and the northwest town of Bolton, with almost half the cases related to contact with a traveler.

“I think we’ve got to be very careful about that,” Johnson told reporters, in reference to the variant.

“We’re doing a huge amount, obviously, to make sure that when we do find outbreaks of the Indian variant that we do surge testing, that we do door-to-door testing.”

PHE cited evidence that it spreads more quickly than the original version of the virus and could spread as quickly as the so-called “Kent” variant which fueled England’s second wave of infections.

The public health body said other characteristics of the B.1.617.2 variant were still being investigated.

“There is currently insufficient evidence to indicate that any of the variants recently detected in India cause more severe disease or render the vaccines currently deployed any less effective,” PHE said in a statement.

The original India variant, B.1.617, was first detected in October, but PHE has categorized three different subtypes, all with slightly different mutations.

Other variants of concern include variants first identified in Kent, southeast England, as well as South Africa and Brazil.

Two weeks ago, India, which is experiencing a deadly surge in cases, was added to Britain’s travel “red list,” meaning travelers have to quarantine in special hotels.

But the move, which came in on April 23, was announced on April 19, giving travelers notice if they wanted to change plans and beat the hotel quarantine.

Britain has recorded 4,428,553 coronavirus cases and 127,583 deaths since the pandemic hit its shores, making it one of the worst hit countries in the world. About 66% of the adult population has now been vaccinated and lockdown restrictions are being eased.

India is reporting record daily death tolls. In total it has recorded 21.49 million cases and 234,083 deaths.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Paul Sandle and Sarah Young; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Pleas for help in India as COVID-19 leaves children without carers

By Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sethuraman N R and Chandini Monnappa

BENGALURU (Reuters) -When an Indian children’s rights group tracked down two boys aged 6 and 8 after it was told that their parents were both severely ill with COVID-19 and unable to care for them, the children had not eaten for days.

The case, reported by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) group which located the boys in a small town in India’s rural heartland, was one of a growing number of emergencies involving children affected by India’s devastating coronavirus crisis.

The exponential rise in infections and deaths has left some children, particularly in poor communities, without a carer because their parents or other relatives are too ill to cope or have died.

“Because the number of deaths has increased, the crisis is that either children are losing their parents, or their caregivers are hospitalized, and there is no one to take care of them,” said Dhananjay Tingal, executive director of BBA.

India’s underfunded social services are struggling to cope, and in certain parts of the country there is still stigma surrounding people who contract the virus, leaving some children isolated.

“Neighbors and extended family do not want to help because they are afraid of infection, treating these families almost like outcasts,” said Tingal.

He did not share further details of the two boys because of concern for their privacy.

Tingal said BBA, which is headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Sayarthi, started receiving calls about children in dire situations linked to the COVID-19 outbreak in early April. The volume of calls increased after Sayarthi posted a helpline number on Twitter on April 29.

BBA now receives about 70 calls a day seeking help for children whose parents are dead or seriously ill, and a greater number of calls from parents who have tested positive and want to know if the group can take care of their children if their health fails.

“NEED A BREAST MILK DONOR”

With 3.57 million active cases of COVID-19, India recorded more than 400,000 new infections over the last 24 hours – the highest daily tally reported globally – while deaths rose by a record 3,980.

Experts say actual numbers could be five to 10 times higher. Citizens across the country, the world’s second most populous, are struggling to find beds, oxygen, or medicines needed for treatment, and many are dying for lack of treatment.

Desperate pleas to help children have been appearing on social media.

“Need a breast milk donor for a one-day-old baby in Delhi. Her mother passed away due to COVID,” read one Tweet. The person later said help had been found.

Protsahan India Foundation, a children’s rights NGO, said its frontline workers recently attended to children who had gone without food for days after their mother, the main caregiver, passed away.

“The father is a daily wage worker and is in a state of shock and trauma himself. We are helping with food and immediate care, education and protection needs of those kids,” said Sonal Kapoor, founder-director at Protsahan.

In the state of Karnataka, home to the tech city of Bengaluru and an epicenter of the second wave, the government has appointed an official to identify children orphaned by COVID-19 ensure they receive appropriate support.

The state this week also ramped up messaging around children’s safety and appealed to citizens not to seek help online from unknown groups.

In the capital New Delhi, the city-state’s child protection arm this week wrote to the police asking them to investigate posts on social media calling for urgent adoptions.

“They may also be cases of trafficking and sale-purchase of the children,” the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights warned.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Chandini Monappa and Sethuraman N R in Bengaluru, editing by Alasdair Pal and Estelle Shirbon)

Poland tightens quarantine rules after cases of Indian COVID-19 variant

WARSAW (Reuters) – People travelling to Poland from Brazil, India and South Africa will have to quarantine, the Polish health minister said on Tuesday, as he announced cases of a COVID-19 variant first detected in India in the Warsaw and Katowice areas.

The outbreaks poses a fresh risk to Poland just as it starts to emerge from a highly damaging third wave of the pandemic.

“In the case of Brazil, India and South Africa, people travelling from these locations will automatically have to quarantine without the possibility of getting an exception due to a test,” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told a news conference.

The number of infections involving the Indian variant in Poland has now reached 16, including two cases in the family of a Polish diplomat who had returned from India, Niedzielski said.

Poland has so far reported 2,808,052 cases of COVID-19 and 68,133 deaths.

Poland reopened shopping centers on Tuesday, the beginning of a gradual unfreezing of the economy that will see restaurants, hotels and schools reopening at different points in May.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Trainee Indian doctors pulled from exams to fight world’s biggest COVID surge

By Adnan Abidi and Shilpa Jamkhandikar

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – India postponed exams for trainee doctors and nurses on Monday, freeing them up to fight the world’s biggest surge in coronavirus infections, as the health system crumbles under the weight of new cases and hospitals run out of beds and oxygen.

The total number of infections so far rose to just short of 20 million, propelled by a 12th straight day of more than 300,000 new cases in a pandemic sparked by a virus first identified in central China at the end of 2019.

Medical experts say actual numbers in India could be five to 10 times higher than those reported.

Hospitals have filled to capacity, supplies of medical oxygen have run short, and morgues and crematoriums have been overloaded with corpses. Patients are dying on hospital beds, in ambulances and in carparks outside.

“Every time we have to struggle to get our quota of our oxygen cylinders,” said B.H. Narayan Rao, a district official in the southern town of Chamarajanagar, where 24 COVID-19 patients died, some from a suspected shortage of oxygen supplies.

“It’s a day-to-day fight,” added Rao, as he described the hectic scramble for supplies.

In many cases, volunteer groups have come to the rescue.

Outside a temple in the capital, New Delhi, Sikh volunteers were providing oxygen to patients lying on benches inside makeshift tents, hooked up to a giant cylinder. Every 20 minutes or so, a new patient came in.

“No one should die because of a lack of oxygen. It’s a small thing otherwise, but nowadays, it is the one thing every one needs,” Gurpreet Singh Rummy, who runs the service, told Reuters.

Total infections since the start of the pandemic have reached 19.93 million in India, swelled by 368,147 new cases over the past 24 hours, while the death toll rose by 3,417 to 218,959, health ministry data showed. At least 3.4 million people are currently being treated.

Offering a glimmer of hope, the health ministry said positive cases relative to the number of tests fell on Monday for the first time since at least April 15.

Modelling by a team of government advisers shows coronavirus cases could peak by Wednesday this week, a few days earlier than a previous estimate, since the virus has spread faster than expected.

At least 11 states and regions have ordered curbs on movement to stem infections, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, widely criticized for allowing the crisis to spin out of control, is reluctant to announce a national lockdown, concerned about the economic impact.

“In my opinion, only a national stay at home order and declaring medical emergency will help to address the current healthcare needs,” Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist with the University of Michigan, said on Twitter.

CRISIS TESTS MODI

As medical facilities near breaking point, the government postponed an exam for doctors and nurses to allow some to join the coronavirus battle alongside existing personnel, it said in a statement.

In Pune, the second-largest city in the state of Maharashtra, Dr. Mekund Penurkar returned to work just days after losing his father to COVID-19. His mother and brother are in hospital with the virus, but patients are waiting to see him.

“It is a very difficult situation,” he said. “Because I have been through such a situation myself, I can’t leave other patients to their fate.”

Modi has been criticized for not moving sooner to limit the spread and for letting millions of largely unmasked people attend religious festivals and crowded political rallies in five states during March and April.

In early March, a forum of government scientific advisers warned officials of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold, five of its members told Reuters.

Despite the warning, four of the scientists said the federal government did not seek to impose major curbs.

With the next general election due in 2024, it remains to be seen how the pandemic might affect him or his party. His Hindu nationalist party was defeated on Sunday in a state poll in the eastern state of West Bengal, although it won in the neighboring state of Assam.

Leaders of 13 opposition parties urged Modi in a letter on Sunday to immediately launch free national vaccinations and to priorities oxygen supplies to hospitals and health centers.

Despite being the world’s biggest producer of vaccines, India does not have enough for itself. Just 9% of a population of 1.35 billion has received a dose.

Daily shots have fallen sharply from an all-time high reached early last month as domestic companies struggle to boost supplies. Vaccination centers in Mumbai were deserted after the state government said it did not have enough supplies to administer second doses for adults above 45.

Only limited doses were available for those aged 18-44 and no walk-ins were allowed.

India has struggled to increase capacity beyond 80 million doses a month due to a lack of raw materials and a fire at the Serum Institute, which makes the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Another manufacturer, Pfizer Inc, is in talks with the government for “expedited approval” of its vaccine, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on LinkedIn, announcing a donation of medicines worth more than $70 million.

Last month, India said its drugs regulator would hand down a decision within three days on emergency-use applications for foreign vaccines, including that of Pfizer.

International aid has poured in in response to the crisis.

Britain will send another 1,000 ventilators to India, the government said on Sunday. Prime ministers Boris Johnson and Modi are set to talk on Tuesday.

The Indian COVID-19 variant has now reached at least 17 countries including Britain, Iran and Switzerland, spurring several nations to close their borders to travelers from India.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta and Anuron Kumar Mitra; Additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar in Bengaluru; Writing by Michael Perry and Nick Macfie; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Clarence Fernandez, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Hugh Lawson)