By VOA News
The situation in pandemic-ravaged South Asia is “unlike anything our region has seen before,” the regional director of UNICEF said Tuesday (May 25).
“The sheer scale and speed of this new surge of COVID-19 is outstripping countries’ abilities to provide life-saving treatment,” George Laryea-Adjei told reporters Monday in Geneva.
Laryea-Adjei said that while India recorded the highest-ever single-day death toll from COVID-19 – 4,529 deaths in one day last week – an estimated 228,000 children and 11,000 mothers across the region died due to disruptions in essential health care services.
“With a surge that is four times the size of the first, we are facing a real possibility of a severe spike in child and maternal deaths in South Asia,” he said.
India has recorded nearly 27 million cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Many believe the number is much higher because of a lack of testing. (VOA) -jlo
