Optimism fades in South Asia
Early optimism that South Asia might have dodged the worst ravages of the coronavirus pandemic has disappeared as soaring infection rates turn the densely populated region into a global hot spot.
After several months trailing the US and western Europe, cases of COVID-19 are surging across South Asia -- home to almost a quarter of the world's population -- where the virus is wreaking havoc on fragile medical systems and underfunded health agencies are pushed to breaking point.
Overflowing hospitals from Kabul to Dhaka are turning away suspected virus patients, mortuaries are being overwhelmed as cemeteries and crematoria struggle to cope, and desperate families are searching for help for critically ill loved ones.
"The situation is catastrophic," Abdur Rob, a senior doctor at Bangladesh's Chittagong General Hospital, told AFP. "Patients are dying in the ambulances on the roads as they shunt between hospitals looking for (intensive care) beds or hospital admission."
Archie Clements, the vice-chancellor of the health sciences faculty at Curtin University in Western Australia, said the situation would likely worsen.
The growth curve "is still in an exponential phase", Clements said. "We could be heading towards a larger number of deaths in the weeks ahead."
Devastating scenarios are playing out as cash-strapped governments choose between enforcing lockdowns or watching low-income families slide deeper into poverty, often with no safety nets to catch them.
India is the fourth worst-hit country in the world with more than 354,000 confirmed cases -- though limited testing means the true number is likely much higher. The number of fatalities leapt by more than 2,000 to top 11,900 on Wednesday after Mumbai and New Delhi updated their figures.
India won plaudits in late March for imposing one of the world's strictest lockdowns. But millions of migrant workers were left jobless and, unable to get home, sometimes held in crowded facilities that increased the risk of transmission. As the government steadily lifts restrictions, cases have surged.
In neighbouring Pakistan, which has recorded more than 160,000 cases and over 3,000 deaths, Prime Minister Imran Khan resisted a nationwide lockdown, saying the country could ill afford it.
Authorities have warned that Pakistan would likely see more than one million cases by July, and the World Health Organization has called for new lockdowns, a measure Khan rejected.
Last week, burial figures released by nine state-run graveyards in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, as well as dozens of small graveyards in a neighbouring city, showed at least 1,600 additional deaths in April and May, a top Bengali news site reported.
Yet health ministry data show only 450 people died from COVID-19 in the two cities during the period.
Similar anecdotes are emerging in conflict-battered Afghanistan, which has only acknowledged more than 26,000 cases and 500 deaths -- seemingly impossibly low numbers for a country that failed to enforce lockdowns.
Meanwhile, travel restrictions were placed on nearly half a million people near Beijing yesterday as authorities rushed to contain a fresh outbreak of the coronavirus. The surging infections in China have raised fresh doubts about how soon the world can control the pandemic, which has seen more than 8.3 million cases and nearly 450,000 deaths.
Brazil recorded 1,269 additional Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States.
As cases spirals across the world, World Health Organization raises hope for virus vaccine. WHO hopes hundreds of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine can be produced this year and 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said yesterday.
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