Coronavirus: India offers Covid-19 orphans a financial lifeline; Malaysia to ramp up vaccination drive

Indian children who have lost both their parents to the pandemic will be provided with free education and health insurance, New Delhi said

Elsewhere, Ho Chi Minh City will test all of its 13 million residents for coronavirus after a surge in cases

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A doctor checks the blood pressure of a child at a Covid-19 care centre in Bangalore, India. Photo: Sopa Images via Zuma Wire/DPA

Published: 3:50pm, 30 May 2021Updated: 10:44pm, 30 May 2021

India on Sunday reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in 46 days at 165,553 cases during the previous 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,460, after New Delhi announced measures to support children who have lost both their parents to the pandemic that include providing them with free education and health insurance.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration will use the PM Cares fund to provide each child with 1 million rupees (US$13,805) when they turn 18, the government said in a statement on Saturday. The children will be enrolled in the government’s health insurance programme and premiums will be paid via the PM Cares fund until they are 18.

The fund will also pay for school needs such as fees, uniforms and books. Once they turn 18, they will receive a monthly stipend, and at age 23, the corpus will be given in a single payout.

Indian children such as twin sisters Tripti and Pari, who lost both their parents to Covid-19, will be given free education and health insurance. Photo: AFP

The world’s worst outbreak shattered families and orphaned children in In India, where 27 per cent of the population of 1.3 billion is under 14, and the country had an estimated 350,000 orphans in institutional care going into the pandemic.

India will have nearly 120 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines available for domestic use in June, the government said on Sunday. This marks a significant jump from the 79.4 million doses that were available in May.

India has administered about 212 million doses, the most after China and the United States, but has given the necessary two doses to only about 3 per cent of its 1.35 billion people.