As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its 14th month, the human suffering and toll on hospitals and health care workers in the United States and Europe has fortunately slowed, as evidenced by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing downward trends in the number of infections and hospitalizations in the last 30 days.
However, the story is much different in India, the world’s second-largest country with a population of more than 1.3 billion.
On May 10, India recorded 387,097 new cases of COVID-19, with 3,957 deaths in a single day. Over the last 30 days, the infection rate in India has ballooned by 370%, with equally devastating death rates.
The Indian health care system is on the brink of collapse, with projections that the pandemic will cause approximately 1.5 million deaths by Sept. 1. Desperately ill people and their distraught families are begging for admission to hospitals and are being deprived of even the bare minimum medical supplies, such as oxygen. Remdesivir, a drug used in the treatment of COVID-19, is being sold on the black market.
Hospitals have run out of beds, and the crematoriums are operating full time with a huge waiting list. Stories of dead bodies being dumped in the Ganges River are rampant. A recent news report showed nearly 50 bodies floating in the Ganges. The sanctity of life and death have been lost in the COVID-19 world.
The unprecedented tragedy in India is also taking its toll on neighboring countries, with the infection spreading like wildfire and the possibility of it overwhelming these countries as well. Additionally, the strong possibility of emergent COVID-19 variants does not bode well for the efforts worldwide to ameliorate this pandemic. Recently, the World Health Organization dubbed the coronavirus variant found in India a “variant of global concern” due to its easy transmissibility. There are reports that the available vaccines work against this variant, but one can only speculate when this will no longer hold.
Today, around 90% of the total Indian population — more than 1.2 billion people — has not received even one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine stocks have been depleted, and people are returning from the vaccination centers without getting inoculated due to the limited supply. The irony is that India is the world’s largest vaccine-producing country and home to the world’s largest vaccine producer. India has exported 66 million COVID-19 vaccines since January to more than 100 countries, including heavily infection-stricken countries like Brazil. With a reputation as the “vaccine powerhouse of the world,” India now depends on other countries to vaccinate its population.
As we saw from the rapid spread of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, we live in a globalized world, and the security and safety of the population everywhere is reliant on the well-being of all countries. Many countries, led by the U.S., have come forward to help India in its time of crisis and are sending medical supplies, oxygen concentrators and vaccines.
However, the urgency of this situation demands more. We as individuals, organizations, and institutions should not be mere spectators to the human tragedy taking place, not only in India, but in other nations around our shared globe.
At Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, we are working to mobilize support and collaboration through our organization and communities. The pandemic has taught us many lessons, including the importance of banding together in times of crisis.
As more people are vaccinated across the U.S., restrictions loosen and life returns to normal, let us not forget the country that produced so many of those vaccines, nor turn a blind eye to the human tragedy unfolding there.
Vivekanand Tiwari, of White River Junction, is a physician and clinical fellow in rheumatology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and a native of Ghazipur, India.