President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States will donate ventilators to India to help it fight novel coronavirus pandemic, adding the two countries are cooperating to develop a vaccine. Trump added that he stood by India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this hour of crisis.
"I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and Narendra Modi during this pandemic. We're also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!" Trump wrote on his official Twitter account.
The US President had announced a team to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus at 'Warp Speed', adding the country will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of the vaccine by the end of this year.
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He said the 'Operation Warp Speed' is evaluating 14 vaccine candidates and that USD 10 billion dollars will be put into the project, which will be run by a four-star Army general Gustave Perna and the former GlaxoSmithKline vaccine head Dr Moncef Slaoui.
"I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine and this data made me feel even more confident that we'll be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020 and we will do the best we can," Trump said during a press conference on Friday.
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On May 10, India's Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu had told ANI that both US and India are engaged in "close" cooperation on exchange of information regarding Covid-19.
He had also highlighted that there are at least three possible vaccines for coronavirus on which Indian and American companies are working together.
The United States has the highest case count in the world, 1,427,867, including 86,386 fatalities.
Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 count reached 81,970, including 51,401 active cases and 2,649 deaths. 27,919 patients have been cured/discharged so far.
(With inputs from ANI)
