India receiving $100M in US coronavirus supplies as desperate patients turn to black market

The U.S. announced on Wednesday that it was sending $100 million in coronavirus supplies to India in an effort to provide “urgent relief” as the country grapples with a devastating wave of new infections.

The announcement comes as reports emerge that desperate citizens are increasingly turning to the black market to purchase drugs in an effort to save sick relatives. Ashish Poddar told the Associated Press he paid a dealer $1,000 in advance for remdesivir and tocilizumab after the hospital told him supply had run out and the therapies were what would keep his father alive. The dealer, however, never came, and his father died. "I wish he had at least told me that he isn’t going to come," Poddar told the Associated Press. "I could have searched elsewhere."