+

Israel stands with India amid coronavirus crisis: Deputy Ambassador

Deputy Ambassador of Israel Rony Yedidia-Clein suggests that India should vaccinate people in every village and town, as quickly as possible.

Deputy Ambassador of Israel Rony Yedidia-Clein recently joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation on Israel’s aid to India amid the Covid-19 second wave, which has wreaked havoc in the country, especially due to shortage of medical supplies and enormous pressure on the healthcare system.

Shedding light on what aid has been provided to India till now, Rony Yedidia-Clein said, “When the crisis started, we turned to our foreign minister about this and told him. He started to act. At first, we were even willing to get the embassy budgets into this, but it would have been much smaller shipment. The foreign minister acted and worked with the Ministry of Finance and other ministries to get a really big shipment of

aid, which actually has been coming over the past week in three different flights. The first one was in a passenger plane which had ventilators and oxygen concentrators. On Friday and Sunday, we had two big Indian Air Force planes coming in, with oxygen generators, which are huge. These are headed for three different hospitals, and can be of help to 120 beds, in terms of oxygen. The smaller oxygen concentrators can be installed by the bedside in hospitals or at home for oxygen therapy of Covid patients, and ventilators. The Israeli government really came together. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health and various Israeli economic organisations came together and helped the Indian people.”

Speaking about the different Israeli teams arriving in India to help with rapid testing and oxygen concentrators, she said, “These are teams from two of our best hospitals. Right now, they are waiting for all the necessary authorisation from the Israeli government, in order to be able to leave because in the times of crisis, we are not letting people go; especially health professionals leave so easily. It is a process for them, in order to get here. Hopefully, they will soon have all the necessary documentation and authorisation. They will be coming here to work in two hospitals, one in Kochi and one at Delhi, in order to help the staff there and bolster them, in terms of Israeli know-how and also just to help out, because we know that the medical staff is stretched whenever there is a crisis like this.”

Asked about the Israeli government and the Israeli people’s message to India in times of crisis, she said, “The message is Israel stands with India, whether it be gathering supplies in order to send here or even the huge get-together where they all are praying Om Namah Shivay in support of the Indian nation and Indians in general, hoping and wishing them good health in their hour of need. Israelis really, really love India. They have a record of coming here in large numbers. They enjoy visiting India. They look forward to coming again. We are also looking forward to having Indian tourists come to Israel. Both the countries are on good terms and I hope the friendship just continues.”

Talking about Israel’s fight against Covid-19, the Israeli Deputy Ambassador said, “We have been very fortunate that we were able to buy a large amount of vaccines very early. Even before the vaccines were finished and were yet in the development stage, we sort of put our bets on a couple of good companies like Pfizer and came to agreement with them in terms of supplies of vaccine to Israel. When we got the first vaccine, we started in December and we went full force in a very massive way, in order to vaccinate as many people as possible. We started with those who were 60 plus with comorbidities, but we never stopped right there because at the end of day, you have some vaccines left over that were just going to the garbage. Rather than allowing that to happen, we invited people even if they are younger, even if they don’t have comorbidities, if they are in the area and want to get vaccinated, they can come and get them; so no vaccine was ever thrown away. We quickly opened it to as many people as possible, over the age of 16. We had a very massive campaign. There is a vaccination stand in every village and every town, where people can go and get vaccinated. This is something we did to make sure everyone is vaccinated. Now, we have almost 80% of the population that is vaccinated or recovering.”

Asked about Israel’s suggestion to India on its vaccination programme, she said, “I would recommend India to go to every possible village and town, in order to vaccinate people, do it as quickly as possible and don’t allow any vaccine to go waste. Even when you are getting vaccines for the population, if you are allowing a situation where you throw vaccines, it is really such a waste. If there is any possible way, even if you don’t have enough people within the age, just go ahead and vaccinate people. Do a huge public relations campaign. We in Israel had a very huge public relations campaign, where people were hearing everywhere how important it is to vaccinate.”

When asked about the potential areas of collaboration between India and Israel as far as medical research is concerned. Rony Yedidia-Clein said, “We have had some medical research together. In the last summer, we had operation ‘Open Sky’, where we worked together finding rapid tests for vaccines. We are working on other things as well. We are working on various medicines for Covid-19. We also have joint research on other medical fronts as well. We have academic collaboration between the two countries and so we have Indian scientists working together with Israeli scientists on a variety of different things and areas.”

On a concluding note, she shared her thoughts on India-Israel friendship and said: “Our friendship is very strong and very deep. Israel is grateful for the friendship between the two countries that goes back to almost thirty years. We hope to be by India’s side all along the way. We are great friends of India. Our friendship will only go ahead and strengthen.”

Tags:

Featured