Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday thanked Donald Trump, a day after he said that the United States will donate ventilators to India in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Trump had also expressed his support for Modi and said that the two nations will overcome the health crisis together.

The prime minister said that the pandemic is being fought collectively. “In such times, it’s always important for nations to work together and do as much as possible to make our world healthier and free from Covid-19,” Modi tweeted. “More power to India-United States friendship.”

Late on Friday, Trump had said that India and US were also coordinating in developing a vaccine for coronavirus. “I just got back a short while ago from India recently and we are working very much with India and we have a tremendous Indian population in the US and many of the people that you are talking about are working on the vaccine too,” Trump had said.

Earlier in April, Trump had hinted at retaliation if India failed to provide his country the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to combat coronavirus. The drug is one of the experimental and unproven means used to fight the virus. Just hours after his comments, the Centre had partially lifted the ban on export of the drug. The Ministry of External Affairs had claimed that India decided to export paracetamol and hydroxychloroquine in appropriate quantities “to neighbouring countries” on humanitarian grounds.

The United States is the worst hit country with more than 14.42 lakh cases and over 87,000 deaths. Meanwhile, India has recorded 85,940 cases and 2,752 deaths as of Saturday morning, and data from the state health departments showed that India has surpassed China’s coronavirus tally.

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