This is VOA News. Reporting by remote, I'm Joe Ramsey. The U.S.'s largest business organization warns India's economy could falter from its record spike in coronavirus cases. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Monday the world may have to deal with the fallout of what happens to the Indian economy - the six largest in the world. The business lobbying group says the risk is high, given many companies use Indian workers to run their back office operations.
The United States and Britain are rushing more ventilators and vaccine materials to India Tuesday, where the situation was described Monday by the World Health Organization as "beyond heartbreaking." India and its population of 1.3 billion is battling the worst rise in cases anywhere since the start of the pandemic overwhelming crowded hospitals. Nearly 353,000 new infections and 2,800 deaths were recorded on Monday, the 5th straight day of record highs. The WHO is transferring more than 2,600 of its experts from other fields like polio and tuberculosis to work with Indian health authorities. Globally the U.N. health agency warns new case numbers have been rising for the past nine weeks straight. There were almost as many cases worldwide last week as in the first five months of the pandemic.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made the case Monday before the United Nations that now is the time to begin work on how to respond to the next global pandemic. The virtual address was Harris's second to the U.N. body since her inauguration. It comes as the United States makes progress on vaccinating the public and much of the world struggles to acquire vaccines. Harris told U.N. members "At the same time the world works to get through this pandemic, we also know, we must prepare for the next." Find more at voanews.com. This is VOA News.