A month after India banned the export of Hydroxychloroquine, US President Donald Trump has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release the amount of drugs ordered by the United States.
Donald Trump said that he spoke to PM Narendra Modi on Saturday (April 4) morning and made a request to release Hydroxychloroquine for America.
"I called Prime Minister Modi of India this morning. They make large amounts of Hydroxychloroquine. India is giving it a serious consideration," Trump stated while addressing his press conference at the White House.
On March 25, India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade banned the export of Hydroxychloroquine but said that certain shipments on humanitarian grounds may be allowed on a case-by-case basis.
Coronavirus pandemic in the United States
Confirmed cases of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States surpassed 300,000 on April 4, with over 8,000 fatalities.
Scientists across the world in particular in the US are racing against time to find either a vaccine or a therapeutic cure to the virus that has so far killed over 64,700 people and infected 1,202,242 in more than 160 countries.
For the successful treatment of Covid-19, the Trump administration is banking heavily on the use of Hydroxychloroquine, a decades-old malaria drug, based on some previous results.
Following a quick provisional approval from the US Food and Drug Administration last Saturday, the malaria drug along with a combination of some other drug is being used in the treatment of about 1,500 coronavirus patients in New York City.
According to the US President, the drug is yielding positive results. If successful, he told reporters that it would be a gift from heaven.
In the next several weeks, health experts in the US has projected between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths due to coronavirus, which due to human-to-human transmission is spreading like a wildfire in the US.
In anticipation of it being a successful drug in the treatment of coronavirus, the US has already stockpiled some 29 million doses.
It is in this context Trump requested Modi to help the US get millions of doses of Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that can be produced at a mass scale in India.
Trump said he would appreciate if India releases the amount of Hydroxychloroquine that the US has ordered.
"And I said I would appreciate if they (India) would release the amounts that we ordered, he said, without mentioning that quantity of Hydroxychloroquine that has been ordered by US companies from India.
The Trump administration has made Hydroxychloroquine as part of its Strategic National Stockpile.
Trump said that people in malaria affected-countries take Hydroxychloroquine and not many people are infected by the coronavirus.
Trump said that he would take Hydroxychloroquine if needed.
"I think people should if it were me, in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it, Ok? I may take it. And, I'll have to ask my doctors about that, but I may take it, he said in response to a question.
(With agency inputs)
