50 ventilators coming soon, says US, trashes talk of $2 million payment

NEW DELHI: The first tranche of 50 ventilators being donated by the US will arrive in India in a few days, with another 150 coming in the next few weeks, US officials told journalists on Tuesday. They refuted some news reports which had said India would be paying over $2 million for the ventilators.
“This is a donation. The US government plans to donate 200 ventilators to India, and we expect the first tranche of 50 to arrive soon,” said Ramona El Hamzaoui, acting director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Ventilators, she said, are being provided by the US to a number of countries to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic. This was announced by US President Donald Trump in a tweet a couple of days ago.
The US is donating 200 ventilators to Russia as well, along with several other countries, as part of the $900 million assistance programme in the time of the pandemic.
While Trump has threatened to cut off funding to the WHO, Meghna Desai, representative of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said they were working on WHO reform that “access to vaccines and supply chains should be open to all”. The CDC has recently given $3.6 million to India.