'Cases have now increased for the ninth straight week' said the Director General of the WHO, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify around the globe.
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India's Covid-19 death toll has exceeded 200,000 after a record number of 3293 were reported on Wednesday, as patients across India continue to pay extortionate black market prices for oxygen and essential medicines.
The second wave of Covid-19, believed to be driven by more contagious variants, has wreaked devastation on India and the current daily death tolls are thought to be up to 20 times higher than recorded figures.
A Covid-19 patient sits inside a car and breathes with the help of oxygen provided by a Gurdwara, a Sikh house of worship, in New Delhi, India. Photo / AP
Many state governments are not reporting Covid-19 deaths if there is comorbidity, in order to reduce panic and for political point-scoring, while testing shortages mean many Indians are dying before it is confirmed they have the virus.
"I can easily say that around 1000 Covid-19 cases are getting funerals every day. This figure is seven to eight times higher than the official figures," the manager of one crematorium in Delhi told the Daily Telegraph.
Multiple funeral pyres of victims of Covid-19 burn at a ground that has been converted into a crematorium for mass cremation in New Delhi, India. Photo / AP
Despite emergency ventilators and oxygen concentrators arriving from the United Kingdom, as well as Australia, Germany, and Ireland, there continues to be critical oxygen shortages across much of the country. Hundreds of patients are dying outside hospitals and in their homes each day as a result.
Oxygen cylinders are being sold on the black market for over £1000 ($1900) in Delhi, despite India's capital running out of oxygen. In non-Covid times an oxygen cylinder was available for around £60 ($115).
Indians unable to get admitted into a hospital are increasingly being forced to set up a makeshift Covid-19 ICU in their homes with a cylinder and hiring nursing staff to provide care.
A health worker gives cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to a Covid-19 patient waiting to be attended outside a government Covid-19 hospital in Ahmedabad, India. Photo / AP
However, this option is only open to wealthier Indians and on Wednesday morning, a 15-month-old baby died outside a government hospital in the eastern city of Visakhapatnam, after the hospital was unable to provide oxygen.
The girl's parents told the Indian media they begged staff for admission for 90 minutes before her tragic death and could not afford to purchase oxygen themselves.
On Tuesday, the Delhi high court warned the city's politicians that it would hand over control of the city's affairs to India's nationally ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), due to an escalating black market for medicines.
Beds lie inside an indoor stadium converted into a Covid-19 treatment centre for emergencies in the wake of the second serge of cases. Photo / AP
One Delhi resident told the Daily Telegraph they had been forced to pay £484 for a vial of remdesivir, despite the World Health Organisation (WHO) stating there is no evidence to suggest it improves survival and the market cap being £19.50.
"The price is going up every day but when your grandma is sick you are desperate and will pay that price," they said, after being told to purchase the drug by a doctor.
Relatives and municipal workers prepare to bury the body of a person who died of Covid-19 in Gauhati, India. Photo / AP
"The issue is that the Indian Government guidelines for drugs like remdesivir says that they may play a role in Covid-19 recovery whereas WHO has a conditional recommendation against it due to insufficient data," explains Dr Jyoti Joshi, the Head of South Asia at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy.
"This potential of use – even without evidence-based benefit – has created a huge demand for use in each patient, causing the public sector and even the private supplies to run out and lead to black marketing."
Relatives of a patient who died of Covid-19, mourn outside a government hospital in Ahmedabad, India. Photo / AP
Criminals have now begun taking advantage of the desperation and in the western city of Pune, four people were arrested for selling liquid paracetamol as seven vials of remdesivir at £334 each.
Many Indian states are currently under curfew to control the spread of the virus and the western state of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, may extend its lockdown until mid-May.
Meanwhile, nearby Goa will enter into its first lockdown this year from Thursday after a spike in cases.
