Joe Biden’s administration is determined to help India in its hour of need due to surging COVID-19 infections and deaths, as India's welfare is critically important to the United States, US  Vice President Kamala Harris said.

Describing the surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths in India as ''nothing short of heartbreaking", she said that the entire Biden administration has been galvanized to help the country in its fight against the pandemic.

''At the beginning of the pandemic, when our hospital beds were stretched, India sent assistance. And today, we are determined to help India in its hour of need," Harris said on Friday in her opening remarks at the State Department's Diaspora outreach event on US COVID Relief for India.

''We do this as friends of India, as members of the Asian Quad, and as part of the global community. I believe that if we continue to work together - across nations and sectors - we will all get through this," she said.

India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 4,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.

The Biden-Harris Administration has announced USD 100 million assistance to India to deal with COVID-19 pandemic. In about a week's time, as many as six planeloads of COVID-19 assistance have landed in India.

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