Stories coming out of India heart-wrenching, horrifying: US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

Washington, April 29 

Stories of the COVID-19 outbreak coming out of India are just absolutely "heart-wrenching" and "horrifying", America's Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said here.

Indian-American Murthy, who has become the US Surgeon General for the second time, has lost seven of his family members, both in the United States and India.

"We talk to our family there on a daily basis. They are really struggling. The stories coming out of India are just absolutely heart-wrenching, and they're horrifying, where it's the kind of circumstance that we hope never comes to be in our country or in our communities," Murthy told the media on Wednesday.

"But what India is seeing now are more than 350,000 people a day getting infected. They're seeing the hospital systems in many cities on the brink, unable to meet the full demands, and they're running out of oxygen. They're in a very, very difficult place right now," he said.

Responding to a question, Murthy said he was very pleased to see the United States step up and extend help to India in its hour of crisis.

"The US government will also be sending strike teams from the CDC and the USAID, Agency for International Development, to help India by working with their teams to strengthen laboratory capacity, to help with infection prevention and control," he added.

"This is what we have to do broadly across the world, because global pandemics require global cooperation and mutual support. And we know that when there's uncontrolled spread of the virus in any part of the world, that means that variants can arise, variants which may over time become resistant to the protection that we get from vaccines, which could mean a real problem for us here in the United States," Murthy said.

He said that it is in America's interests to make sure that countries around the world are protected, that they have vaccine, and the ability to limit the spread of infection. PTI