The US Defence Department is working on providing the direly-needed oxygen to India in the grip of a COVID-19 surge and Washington may be able to reroute shipments to India, according to Joe Biden's spokesperson Jen Psaki. The US has also identified commercial suppliers of Remdesivir who can immediately provide the Covid-19 medicine to India, she said on Monday at her briefing.

"Department of Defense and USAID are pursuing options to provide oxygen generation systems (and) we may be in a position to reroute shipments meant for other countries with lower immediate needs, given the urgency of the conditions in India," she said. The Defence Department is also looking at sending field oxygen generation systems, which have been used in US field medical hospitals and can support 50 to 100 bed, and oxygen concentrators used to produce medical quality gas, Psaki said.