respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, adding that “we’re all in this together”.
“The United States has really revved up their activity in helping out India … we’re sending oxygen, remdesivir, personal protective equipment, a variety of other medications and soon we’ll be sending vaccine to help out,” he said.
“[…] we’re all in this together,” he added. “It’s an interconnected world. And there are responsibilities that countries have to each other, particularly if you’re a wealthy country and you’re dealing with countries that don’t have the resources or capabilities that you have.”
According to data issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday (27 April), with nearly 5.7 million new cases reported in the last week, global COVID infections increased for the ninth consecutive week, surpassing previous weeks. Of this tally a majority of the cases were reported from India, with 2,172,063 new infections recorded over the past week.
Dr Fauci noted that while the WHO is attempting to support the South Asian nation through the Covax initiative, other countries around the world have to do “even more than that”.
“So I think that that’s a responsibility that the rich countries need to assume,” he said. “Right now it’s a terrible tragic situation [in India] where people are dying because there’s not enough oxygen, where there’s not enough hospital beds. We have to try, looking forward, to get as much equity when it comes to public health issues as we possibly can.”
The chief medical adviser further noted that the international community should take initiatives to enhance transparency and communication between countries during a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and that health systems across the world needs to be upgraded in order to immediately detect any issues that are emerging.
“You want to have the capability of better surveillance internationally, so that when something comes up and emerges in a given country there’s not a big delay in getting recognition of what’s going on,” he said.
“I know in the United States, for example, our local public health system has not been kept up to the level that we would have liked … we are still using fax machines, which is really unacceptable. You have to be prepared to have interconnectivity.”
