U S donating ventilators to India, says Prez Trump

POTUS  Donald Trump has announced that the US will donate ventilators to his friends in India to help fight the “invisible enemy” without mentioning the quantity. Speaking to reporters in the hollowed White House on Friday, May 15 he acknowledged the contribution being made by PIOs to his country. Calling Prime Minister his “good friend”, Trump said the US and India were cooperating in developing a vaccine for the deadly coronavirus that has claimed 307,666 lives and infected more than 4.5 million people globally since it emerged in China in December last year. “I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India,” Trump said. “We are sending a lot of ventilators to India. I spoke to Prime Minister Modi. We are sending quite a few ventilators to India. We have a tremendous supply of ventilators,” Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One on his way to Camp David. “Together we will beat the invisible enemy! We stand with India and Prime Minister Modi during this pandemic,” Trump said. The president is scheduled to spend his weekend at Camp David. It may be recalled that at  Trump’s request, India had last month allowed export of 50 million hydroxychloroquine tablets to treat COVID-19 patients in America, the country worst-hit by the pandemic, with 87,530 deaths and over 1.4 million infections reported so far, as per Johns Hopkins University data. He said a COVID-19 vaccine would likely be available by the end of the year. Trump has appointed the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline to spearhead the vaccine development effort. Meanwhile, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar remains in touch with his US counterpart Mike  Pompeo about the strategy to contain spread COVID-19.