France delivered around a hundred respirators and tens of thousands of coronavirus screening tests to India on Tuesday July 28. This cargo, transported by a French military plane, comes in response to the drug aid that India had given to France at the height of the pandemic in April.
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The 130 respirators and 50,000 screening kits were handed over to the Indian Red Cross at an air base in New Delhi. Since the start of the epidemic in India, some 35,000 people have died from the coronavirus and the number of cases of infection has just exceeded one and a half million.
With nearly 50,000 new cases every day, India is the country with the fastest growing pandemic and the third most affected country by number of cases after Brazil and the United States. This medical aid from Paris comes as the first five French Rafale fighter jets ordered in 2016 by New Delhi have just taken off to reach their Indian base. The order is for a total of 36 units and deliveries of the remaining aircraft are scheduled to run until 2022.