NEW DELHI (AP) – Indian city of Pune runs out of fans as coronavirus patients drown their hospitals. Social media is full of people looking for beds, while relatives run pharmacies looking for antiviral drugs that hospitals sold out a long time ago.
The increase, which can be seen across India, is especially alarming because the country is a major vaccine producer and a critical supplier of the UN-backed COVAX initiative. This program aims to bring fire to some of the poorest countries in the world. Already the rise in cases has forced India to focus on meeting its domestic demand and delaying deliveries to COVAX and elsewhere, including the United Kingdom and Canada.
India said Tuesday it would authorize a number of new vaccines, but experts said the decision is unlikely to have an immediate impact on supplies available in the country. For now, its focus on domestic needs “means there’s very little, or anything, left for COVAX and everyone,” said Brook Baker, a vaccination expert at Northeastern University.
Pune is the hardest hit city in India, but other major metropolises are also in crisis as new daily infections reach record levels and experts say missteps stemming from the belief the pandemic was over are back to pursue the country.
When infections started falling in India in September, many concluded that the worst had happened. Masks and social distancing were abandoned, while the government gave mixed signals about the level of risk. When cases began to rise again in February, authorities were outraged.
“No one had a long-term view of the pandemic,” said Dr. Vineeta Bal, who studies immune systems at the city’s Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. He noted, for example, that instead of strengthening existing hospitals, temporary sites were created. In Pune, authorities are resurrecting one of these makeshift facilities, which was crucial to the city’s fight against the virus last year.
India is not alone. Many European countries that have seen cases fall are experiencing further rises, and infection rates have been rising in all regions of the world, partially driven by new virus variants.
Over the past week, India had averaged more than 143,000 cases a day. It has now reported 13.6 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, surpassing that of Brazil and making it second only to the United States, although both countries have a much smaller population. Deaths are also rising and have surpassed 170,000. Even these figures, experts say, are probably an understatement.
Nearly all states show an increase in infections and Pune, where 4 million people live, now has only 28 unused fans Monday night for its more than 110,000 COVID-19 patients.
The country now faces the great challenge of vaccinating millions of people, while monitoring the tens of thousands who become infected every day and prevent the health system from collapsing.
Dilnaz Boga has been in and out of hospitals in recent months to visit a sick relative and witnessed the change first hand as cases began to escalate. The beds were suddenly unavailable. The nurses warned visitors to be careful. Posters recommending the proper use of masks emerged everywhere.
And then earlier this month, Boga and his 80-year-old mother tested positive. Doctors suggested her mother be hospitalized, but initially no beds were available. Both she and her mother are recovering.
Growing concerns about the increase in cases is the fact that vaccination in the country could also be a problem: several states in India have reported a lack of doses, even when the federal government has insisted that there has enough stocks in stock.
After a slow start, India has recently surpassed the United States by the number of shots it makes each day and now averages 3.6 million. But with more than four times the number of people and it started later, it has given at least one dose to just 7% of its population.
The state of India, west of Maharashtra, where Pune lives and the financial capital Bombay, has recorded nearly half of the country’s new infections last week. Some vaccination centers in the state moved people away due to scarcity.
At least half a dozen states in India report similar low stocks, but Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has called these concerns “deplorable attempts by some state governments to distract attention from their failures”.
However, India moved on Tuesday to expand the number of vaccines available, authorizing the use of all coronavirus traits to which the World Health Organization or regulators in the United States, Europe, Britain or Japan have made an emergency gesture. Indian regulators also accepted the use of Russia’s Sputnik V emergency.
Concerns over the supply of vaccines have sparked criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has exported 64.5 million doses to other nations. Rahul Gandhi, the face of the main opposition party in Congress, asked Modi in a letter if the government’s export strategy was “an effort to get publicity at the expense of our own citizens.”
Now, India has reversed course. Last month, COVAX said shipments of up to 90 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines were delayed because the Serum Institute of India decided to prioritize domestic needs.
The institute, based in Pune and the world’s largest vaccine maker, told The Associated Press earlier this month that it could restart vaccine exports in June – if new coronavirus infections decrease. But continued growth can lead to more delays.
And experts warn that India could be looking at this.
They suspect that the most likely cause of the widespread increase is the presence of more infectious variants, including a new and potentially problematic variant that was first detected in India itself.
India needs to vaccinate faster and step up measures to stop the spread of the virus, said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center. “The coming months in India are extremely dangerous,” he said.
Still, some say the government’s confusing messaging has failed to communicate the risk.
Modi has pointed to the need for people to wear masks, but in recent weeks, while on the campaign trail, he has delivered speeches in front of tens of thousands of maskless fans.
The federal government has also allowed large gatherings during Hindu festivals such as the Kumbh Mela, where millions of devotees daily take a sacred bath in the Ganges River. In response to concerns that could become an “overexpansion” event, the state’s prime minister, Tirath Singh Rawat, said that “faith in God will overcome fear of the virus.”
“Optics is so important and we’re messing it up completely,” said Dr. Shahid Jameel, who studies viruses at Ashoka University in India.
Dozens of towns and villages have imposed partial restrictions and night curfews to try to curb infections, but Modi has ruled out the possibility of another national closure. He also rejected calls from states to offer vaccines to younger people.
Experts, meanwhile, say the current limit on offering vaccines to people over 45 should be relaxed and that shots should be aimed at areas with waves.
“The load of COVID-19 is feeling uneven,” Udayakumar said. “And the response has to be tailored to local needs.”
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Associated Press journalists Rafiq Maqbool in Bombay and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.