India is facing a sharp surge in COVID‑19 cases that is overwhelming hospitals and placing significant strain on the country’s health-care system, according to World Renew leaders and partners working in the region.
Hospitals across multiple states are reporting capacity shortages as case counts and fatalities continue to rise. Access to oxygen, hospital beds, and essential medical supplies has become increasingly limited in both urban centers and rural communities.
Every day since April 25, India has reported over 350,000 daily new COVID‑19 cases, and it is likely that a vast number of additional cases remain unreported. The daily death rate has now surpassed 3,000. In New Delhi, India’s capital, someone is dying from the virus every four minutes. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and shortages of beds, oxygen, and medical supplies remain severe.
Although a complete country-wide lockdown has not been announced, job loss, food insecurity, and economic vulnerability associated with lockdown measures remain a looming reality for millions of daily wage earners across the country.
“Twenty percent of India’s people live in extreme hunger, and these people are struggling to feed their families and to protect their health during this pandemic,” said Ken Kim, Director of International Disaster Response for World Renew.
Without sufficient relief measures, a large-scale migrant “exodus” from urban areas to rural villages is considered increasingly likely. Such mass movement could accelerate the spread of COVID‑19 into smaller communities that have fewer resources to respond to high infection rates.
“There is evidence showing that COVID‑19 is spreading quickly in smaller communities in India right now,” explained Kim.
World Renew Response Efforts
World Renew’s International Disaster Response team and its community development team in Asia are working alongside local partners to provide hygiene kits to 15 vulnerable rural communities in the state of Jharkhand. The response also includes financial assistance to families to help meet immediate needs such as food and medicines.
In addition, World Renew is supporting a local health-care facility that serves a community of approximately 5,000 people.
“Our approach will deliver support across this complex emergency, at the household level through support for livelihoods and food security, at the community level through advocacy and awareness raising, and at the institutional level through support for community health institutions to enable the delivery of safe, effective care at the time it is most needed,” said Ru Waddell, World Renew’s Asia director.
“The scale of need in a country as large and complex as India is almost unfathomable,” said Waddell. “The focus of World Renew,” he explained, “is to reach people whose stories you don’t hear or see on the news — the marginalized, the poorest, and those who need a helping hand to bring them and their families through this crisis.”
World Renew continues to monitor the situation closely and work with local partners as conditions evolve.
This article is re‑posted and adapted from the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
