The Biden administration will deploy supplies and support to India as they are dealing with a spike in Covid-19 cases. They promised on Sunday to provide new aid, including raw materials for making vaccines.

The pledge from the White House came a few hours after Indian authorities announced another global record in new daily cases on Sunday, and the most Covid-19 deaths the country has suffered in a 24-hour period.

They recorded 349,691 cases. Hospitals are being overrun and medical supplies are scarce. Vaccinations have been few and far; they are the world’s second most populated country and only less than 2% of the population has been fully immunized.

“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need,” President Joe Biden tweeted on Sunday.

Materials needed to produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine made in India have been identified. According to U.S. National Security, the materials “will immediately be made available”.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement Sunday evening that the department is “currently assessing the equipment we can both procure and draw from our own inventory in the coming days and weeks” to help India’s health-care workers.

India suffered a surge in September that approached nearly 100 thousand new infections a day. The numbers dropped dramatically, and it was believed the country was defeating the virus. However, starting in March, the number of cases exploded and reached triple the number of cases that were recorded back in September.

lockdown patrol

Police personel patrol during lockdown/ Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images

The 2,767 deaths reported on Sunday was a new high for India. Experts caution that the figures are undercounts in the nation of more than 1.3 billion. Experts blame the surge on the new coronavirus variants and that the country had lifted their restrictions too early.

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