WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has said that Pakistan has asked him to send ventilators for the victims of the coronavirus and he has agreed to do so.

At a White House briefing on US efforts to combat the disease, President Trump said that on Wednesday he spoke to a number of world leaders “who desperately need ventilators” and assured them that Washington would help them meet their needs.

“Spoke with Pakistan; they would like to have some ventilators. We’re going to get them some ventilators,” he said, adding that all the leaders he spoke to “said to me one thing: It was incredible that you solved the ventilator problem because that was a big problem”.

When the outbreak began two months ago, the United States did not have enough ventilators to meet the rising demand and governors in most of the 50 US states tried to outbid each other to buy these breathing machines from foreign manufacturers.

Unclear whether supply will be US assistance or Islamabad will pay for it

“We are making hundreds of thousands of ventilators right now… and we are sending 500 to Mexico, then another 500 to France. We are sending some to Spain. We are sending some to Italy,” he added.

President Trump then named Pakistan among the nations who would get the ventilators but did not say when and how many. He also did not explain if it would be US assistance to Pakistan’s efforts to combat the viral disease or Islamabad would be buying them from Washington.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2020