BEIJING - China has offered to help India fight COVID-19 after the United States snubbed India's request for the necessary raw materials to produce vaccines, which is, as a scholar has said, an opportunity for India and China to mend their ties, reported the South China Morning Post.

"India's supplies of raw materials for vaccine production from the US and Europe are currently restricted. It desperately needs other countries' help with the pandemic," said Niu Haibin, deputy director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

"This is also an opportunity for both sides to mend bilateral relations," Niu was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

India reported 346,786 more cases on Saturday, a record national daily count worldwide. The report said that India's "hospital system is on the edge of collapse due to shortages of intensive care beds, medical supplies and oxygen."

India is also facing shortage of vaccines and has called for the United States to lift an export ban on the raw materials needed to make vaccines, the newspaper said, "but Washington declined saying that it had a responsibility to look after the American people first."