South Korea to support India's fight against COVID-19 pandemic

Amid the record rise in COVID-19 cases in India, the South Korean government has decided to provide medical supplies to India to help save lives in the face of the pandemic.

"Consultations are underway with the Indian side with regard to the specific medical items in need, such as oxygen concentrators. The Korean government will continue to closely cooperate with India, our Special Strategic Partner, in its fight against COVID-19," the Embassy of the Republic of Korea said in a press release.

This comes as India reported over 3.60 lakh fresh COVID-19 cases and 3,293 related deaths in the last 24 hours.

Several countries around the world have come forward to help India as it continues to struggle with the increase in its health infrastructure needs caused by the rising coronavirus cases.

On Tuesday, the World Health Orgsation (WHO) had said that it has bolstered its COVID-19 response in India by redeploying 2,600 health experts from other programs to counter the recent daily spike in cases and deaths.

In an email to CNN, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said: "As is true in any country, WHO has said the combination of relaxing of personal protective measures, mass gatherings and more contagious variants while vaccine coverage is still low can create a perfect storm."

The health body also said that the problem of hospital overcrowding is being aggravated by patients who may not need to be there.

( With inputs from ANI )