Netanyahu-Modi Diplomacy: India Ships Hydroxychloroquine to Israel
PM Netanyahu: “Thank you, my dear friend, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, for sending Chloroquine to Israel. All the citizens of Israel thank you.”
Lifting a blanket export ban, India has shipped a huge consignment of coronavirus treatment drugs to Israel. New Delhi delivered a five-tonne cargo of medicines including chloroquine, the antiviral drug currently being used in the treatment of Wuhan coronavirus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, for the move. “Thank you, my dear friend, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, for sending hydroxychloroquine to Israel. All the citizens of Israel thank you!” the Israeli leader tweeted on Friday.
New Delhi had previously banned the export of hydroxychloroquine and other coronavirus-related medicines. India is reportedly the biggest manufacturer of the drug typically used in the treatment of malaria patients.
The Times of Israel news website reported New Delhi’s decision:
A plane from India carrying materials used to make medicines for treating coronavirus patients has arrived in Israel.
The five ton shipment, which the Ynet news site said arrived Tuesday, includes ingredients for the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which are used to treat malaria.
Several countries have been experimenting with hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus symptoms and US President Donald Trump has touted its potential. Experts, however, have urged caution until bigger trials validate hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness, as it and chloroquine can have potentially serious side effects, especially in high doses or administered with other medications.
India has limited exports of medicines amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but on Tuesday partially eased a recent ban on exporting hydroxychloroquine after Trump pressured Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India has limited exports of medicines amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but on Tuesday partially eased a recent ban on exporting hydroxychloroquine after Trump pressured Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Last month, New Delhi eased a similar ban on medial exports by shipping N95-type face masks and other medical supplies to Israel following a phone call between the Prime Ministers Netanyahu and Modi.
We have to jointly fight this pandemic.
India is ready to do whatever is possible to help our friends.
Praying for the well-being and good health of the people of Israel. @netanyahu https://t.co/jChdGbMnfH
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 10, 2020
India has also exempted the United States from the export ban on coronavirus-related drugs. President Donald welcomed New Delhi’s decision on Wednesday, lauding Prime Minister Modi’s “strong leadership in helping not just India, but humanity, in this fight.” The U.S. president had previously talked of ‘retaliation’ if the Modi government were to cut the supply of chloroquine drug in midst of the outbreak
Extraordinary times require even closer cooperation between friends. Thank you India and the Indian people for the decision on HCQ. Will not be forgotten! Thank you Prime Minister @NarendraModi for your strong leadership in helping not just India, but humanity, in this fight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020
Hydroxychloroquine is not yet FDA-approved for the treatment of coronavirus, but the antiviral drug has shown positive results in treating infected patients. “A promising laboratory study,” according to the New York Times, “found that chloroquine could block the coronavirus from invading cells which it must do to replicate and cause illness.”
Israeli tech news website NoCamels reported the drug’s role in the treatment:
In a study published last month in Nature, the authors wrote that “chloroquine is a cheap and a safe drug that has been used for more than 70 years and, therefore, it is potentially clinically applicable against the 2019-nCoV.” Earlier this month, a joint Italian-Israeli study published in Critical Care, a peer-reviewed, international clinical medical journal, found that there was “sufficient pre-clinical rationale and evidence regarding the effectiveness of chloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 as well as evidence of safety from long-time use in clinical practice.”
By exempting the U.S. and Israel from its blanket ban, New Delhi is reaffirming its growing economic and national security ties with both countries. In 2016, the U.S. recognized the country as “Major Defense Partner,” a designation that allows it to buy advanced defense technologies and systems reserved only for Washington’s key allies.
Counter-terrorism and cyber security dominate Israel-India ties as well. In recent years, New Delhi has emerged as the biggest buyer of Israeli weapons. Even before the two countries established full diplomatic ties in early 1990s, Israel supplied India with arms and ammunition in times of war when many Western countries refused to help. During the India-Pakistan war of 1999 (the Kargil War), Israel delivered laser-guided missiles to the Indian Air Force, tipping the balance in India’s favor. With shipping much sought-after antiviral drugs to Israel, New Delhi has stepped up to help an old and trusted ally.
President Trump hails Prime Minister Modi’s decision to export chloroquine to the U.S.
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
The power of building trust and cooperation between world leaders shouldn’t be overlooked.
I think people, other than a secret Muslim who was once President, generally like Bibi, he is stable and builds trust. I think President Trump is similar in that way. Building relationships with world leaders, knowing how to work with them, and sometimes bully them, goes a long way toward mutual respect which leads to results.
I cannot imagine Cuomo or Biden doing all that well in that regard.
I have it on good authority from CNN/ABC/NBC that the drug does no good. How curious.
How far does five tons go?
Meanwhile back at the ranch……
Kentucky Democrat Governor Orders Police to Photograph License Plates At Easter Church Services – Will Then Enforce Home Imprisonment…
Kentucky going full totalitarian. Kentucky Democrat Governor, Andy Beshear, has ordered police to photograph (Automated License Plate Reader – ALPR) the license plates of Easter Sunday worshippers who will then be visited by the Ministry of Coronavirus Compliance and forced into a 14 day quarantine…..
The Last Refuge
The old joke of “they can’t put us all in jail” has now been proven false. Civil disobedience is the only course of action from here forward. Don’t go down without swinging.
They won’t jail them just fine them to raise more revenue.Government never has enough of your money.
I thought Israel was shipping malaria meds to the US
This morning on NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon – Simon interviewed a doctor who contracted corvid and then got well. The doctor thoroughly trashed HCQ and went on to say the side effects outweigh the ‘supposed’ benefit of the treatment – he rattled off a list of scary sounding medical
phrases and words – all of which were chosen to induce TrumpFever.
Some doctors never try a drug off-label for their patients, never discuss alternative therapies for difficult diagnoses, never do anything that isn’t suggested by an “expert” or a software program. These days, we have far too many doctors like this guy.
It’s called a Doctor-Patient relationship for a reason, you develop trust in each other, and if someone asks to try a drug, and doc explains the risks/benefits and monitors carefully, the treatment could still go south. There are risks to crossing the street, including death. This old drug has been used in millions for 70 years, not for this but virtually all physicians have prescribed it.
Except junior here….
Just this week I heard a radio interview of a doctor who has prescribed HCQ for over 2000 patients in his practice, I believe it was for its benefits for Parkinson’s. He said he’s never had an adverse effect come up, and made the following points as to why the dangers of it are vastly exaggerated, for whatever reasons., based on the original side effect studies from decades earlier.
1 Patients who had the bad side effects (mainly retina) were receiving 1.5 to 2x the current recommended dosages.
2. Patients affected were literally 1 in a thousand cases. Or 0.1%.
3. Patients affected were only affected after being on a constant regimen of that higher dosage for periods ranging from 5-15 years.
4. There are known symptoms of the bad side effects, which provide suffice not warning to stop treatment before significant permanent damage occurs.
So, in summary, taking HCQ in current standard dosages for several weeks (instead of years) while under a doctors care is not a dangerous proposition – based on science.
LOL at Trump’s tweet thanking India! Two days ago he was threatening India with retaliation if it didn’t send us the drug
I read this morning that India is conditioning the availability to chloroquine to the US issuing to more H-2B visas. Is that the case?
Only India knows how much they will need for their own people but we can always threaten to reduce the number of HB1 workers for long after this wuflu is gone. We can say that we need to employ more Americans to get our unemployment down.