India readies ‘for the worst’
As Covid-19 cases and deaths exploded in India in April and May, New Delhi's premier Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and several others ran so short of oxygen that many patients in the capital suffocated.
When Reuters visited the hospital on Friday, its last coronavirus patient was readying to leave after recovery - a remarkable turnaround health experts attribute to growing levels of immunity from natural infection and vaccinations.
But hospitals have learned from bitter experience during the second Covid wave, as India braces for another possible surge in infections around its September-November festival season.
"In light of the possibility of the emergence of coronavirus mutants, with higher transmissibility and immune escape, the hospital continues to prepare for the worst," said Satendra Katoch, medical director of Ganga Ram hospital.
Nationally, India has added many more hospital beds in the past few months and imported more than 100 oxygen carriers to raise the total to about 1,250. Companies such as Linde are planning to lift the country's overall output of the gas by 50% to 15,000 tonnes a day.
The federal government, meanwhile, has approved the construction of nearly 1,600 oxygen-generation plants at hospitals, though fewer than 300 had been set up as of early last month as imports take time.
Almost all states are readying special paediatric wards as some experts warn unvaccinated children could be vulnerable to any new virus mutations.
But with a government survey estimating as many as two-thirds of Indians already have Covid-fighting antibodies through natural infection, and 57% of its adults with at least an initial vaccine dose, many health experts believe any new outbreak of infections could be much less devastating than the second wave.
However, both government and hospitals aren't leaving it to chance this time.
Comments