The United States will send ventilators to three countries in Latin America – Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras – as well as to Indonesia, President Donald Trump said on Friday, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate countries around the world.

Trump wrote on Twitter that the United States will send Ecuador ventilators. The poor South American nation has been hard hit by the pandemic – which has overwhelmed health services in its largest city, Guayaquil. Trump said Washington would also help in other, unspecified, ways.

He also promised support to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had requested help with ventilators and testing.

Hernandez said he had spoken to Trump and sought help getting debt relief for poor countries, as well as seeking assistance from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Honduras has not benefited from recent debt relief deals, which are mainly aimed at African countries.

The conservative Honduran president added that he has issued a 340 million U.S. dollar financing support request to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund.

The United States will also ship ventilators – machinery used to help distressed lungs breathe – to El Salvador, Trump said.

In tweets announcing the assistance, Trump praised the two Central American countries for helping his efforts to curb illegal immigration.

Trump had slashed U.S. foreign aid to the region, and the burst of largesse followed well-publicized Chinese shipments of protective equipment to Latin American nations from Argentina to Mexico.

The latest U.S. aid extended beyond the Western Hemisphere. In a Friday call, Indonesia's President Joko Widodo asked for respiratory equipment "which we will provide," as well, Trump wrote.

Last week, Trump pledged to help Mexico "substantially" with ventilators and also offered to send them to Iran.

While Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the country will be able to purchase them by month's end and called Trump's offer a "new gesture of solidarity with Mexico," Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had previously rejected any forms of U.S. help.

Pakistan also said Trump pledged U.S. support on Wednesday by making ventilators available to fight the disease and offered to send "the latest rapid testing machine."

The administration's ventilator surge is accelerating as medical experts are forecasting the need for the devices will fall. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose state has been hit the hardest in the U.S., admitted last week that there were now some ventilators left redundant in the state, signaling declining domestic demand for the breathing machines.

(Cover image: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 23, 2020. /Reuters)

(With input from Reuters)