Fresh Covid-19 waves are engulfing other developed countries around the world, putting a strain on their health-care networks and sparking requests for assistance.
In Southeast Asia, countries ranging from Laos to Thailand have recorded major increases in infections in recent weeks.
Last week, the health minister of Laos requested medical devices, services, and care, citing a 200-fold increase in cases in a month. Hospitals in Nepal are rapidly filling and running out of oxygen supplies.
In Thailand, where 98 percent of new cases are caused by a more infectious form of the pathogen, health facilities are under strain.
Ranked by the change in newly recorded infections in the past month over the previous month, Laos came first with a 22,000% increase, followed by Nepal and Thailand, both of which saw fresh caseload skyrocketing more than 1,000% on a month-over-month basis.
On May 1, India reported a record 401,993 new cases in the prior 24 hours, while deaths touched a new high of 3,689 the following day.
Compounding the crisis, health-care facilities are also facing a shortage of medical oxygen, unable to treat distressed patients with coronavirus-infected lungs gasping for air at their doorsteps.
The abrupt outbreak in Laos — a place that only recorded 60 cases since the start of the pandemic through April 20 and no death to date — shows the challenges facing some of the landlocked nations.
Nepal and Bhutan have seen cases erupt, in part due to returning nationals. Nepal, which has identified cases of the new Indian variant, has limited resources to combat the virus.
Red Zone
In Cambodia, since the beginning of the current outbreak, more than 10,000 locally acquired cases have been detected in more than 20 provinces.
Across the oceans in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago announced a partial lockdown after the country’s daily cases hit a record high, closing restaurants, malls and cinemas until late May. The case count in the latest month is about 700% more than the previous month.
“The recent rise in recorded cases throughout the Pacific reveals how critical it is to not just rely on strong borders but to actually get vaccines into these countries, said Jonathan Pryke, who heads research on the Pacific region for the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.
“India is a shocking warning to this part of the world about how quickly this pandemic can spiral out of control.
There’s a duty for developed countries, recovering from the pandemic thanks to rapid inoculations, to contribute to a more equitable global distribution of vaccines, diagnostic tests and therapeutic agents including oxygen, according to Heymann, the professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Getting back to pre-2020 normalcy “really depends on helping countries gain control of this virus as much as possible, she said.
