Vaccination is the only long-term solution to COVID-19 crisis in India, says Fauci

Getting folks vaccinated is the only long-term solution to the present COVID-19 crisis in India, America’s prime public well being professional Dr. Anthony Fauci mentioned on Sunday as he referred to as for scaling up manufacturing of coronavirus vaccines each domestically and globally to struggle the lethal pandemic.

“The endgame of this all…is going to be to get people vaccinated…India is the largest vaccine-producing country in the world. They’ve got to get their resources, not only from within, but also from without,” Mr. Fauci, who is the Chief Medical Adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, informed ABC News in an interview.

“That’s the reason why other countries need to chip in to be able to get either supplies to the Indians to make their own vaccines or to get vaccines donated. One of the ways to do that is to have the big companies that have the capability of making vaccines to really scale up in a great way to get literally hundreds of millions of doses to be able to get to them,” he mentioned.

Responding to a query, Dr. Fauci mentioned that India wants to instantly construct makeshift area hospitals like what China did a yr in the past.

“You’ve got to get that. You can’t have people out in the street not having a hospital bed. The oxygen situation is something that was really critical. I mean, to have people not have oxygen is really tragic, what’s going on over there,” he mentioned.

The 80-year-old doctor and immunologist, who serves as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases mentioned there is a right away drawback of hospital beds, oxygen, PPE and different provides.

Shut down to break the chain of transmission

“Then there’s the problem of looking forward to how are you going to shut this down, how are you going to turn it around, how are you going to break the chain of transmission?” he mentioned, underlining the want for a national lockdown to arrest the unfold of the virus.

“Vaccines is one of them but there are other ways too, like shutting down the government. I have advised them in the past that you really need to do that. You’ve got to shut down. I believe several of the Indian States have already done that, but you need to break the chain of transmission. And one of the ways to do that is to shut down,” the prime American physician mentioned.

Mr. Fauci, in an unique interview to PTI final week, had termed the scenario in India “very desperate” and urged that the authorities marshal all its assets, together with the armed forces, to instantly construct makeshift area hospitals, and urged different international locations to assist with not only supplies but in addition personnel.

He referred to as for a nationwide lockdown, not essentially for six months however “for a few weeks” to break the “continuity and transmission of infection.” He additionally really helpful mass vaccination to arrest the present unfold of the lethal illness throughout India.

India is scuffling with an unprecedented second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with greater than 4,00,000 day by day new coronavirus instances being reported in the previous few days.

China reported the first COVID-19 case in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan in late 2019 and since then the lethal illness has turn into a pandemic, affecting greater than 157,789,300 folks and over 3,285,200 deaths worldwide.