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Facilities across the country have added more beds.
As the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths exploded in India in April and May, New Delhi’s premier Sir Gangaram Hospital and several other hospitals caused many patients in the capital to suffocate due to insufficient oxygen.
When Reuters visited the hospital on Friday, the last coronavirus patient was preparing to leave after recovery-health experts attributed this extraordinary shift to the increasing level of immunity from natural infections and vaccinations.
However, the hospital learned from the painful experience of the second wave of Covid, when the funeral pyre burned continuously and the bodies were scattered on the banks of the holy Ganges, as India was preparing for the holiday season from September to November Infection broke out again.
Facilities across the country have added more beds, and hospitals are working hard to ensure an adequate supply of oxygen.
Ganga Ram is increasing its oxygen storage capacity by 50%, laying a 1-km pipeline to transport the gas directly to the Covid Intensive Care Unit, and is installing equipment to maintain high oxygen flow.
It also ordered an on-site oxygen plant, which is mainly manufactured in Europe, which may take months to arrive in view of the surge in global demand.
“In view of the possible emergence of coronavirus mutants with higher infectivity and immune escape, the hospital continues to prepare for the worst case scenario,” said Satendra Katoch, the hospital’s medical director, while instructing colleagues to conduct internal audits. facility.
However, the crowded private hospital said it had no room for additional beds. At the height of the second wave of the epidemic in India, Ganga Ram expanded its capacity by nearly 50% to about 600 beds, but even so, according to Varun Prakash, the doctor who manages the hospital, there are still about 500 patients per day. Be put on the waiting list. The war room during the crisis.
Nationwide, India has added more hospital beds in the past few months and imported more than 100 oxygen carriers, bringing the total to approximately 1,250. Companies such as Linde are planning to increase the country’s total natural gas production by 50% to 15,000 tons per day.
Linde told Reuters that it retained 60 of the approximately 80 cryogenic containers — used to hold ultra-cold oxygen — that it brought from the company’s overseas operations in case demand surged again.
“During the second wave of the epidemic, the distribution infrastructure and logistics were insufficient,” said Moloy Banerjee, head of Linde South Asia.
At the same time, the federal government has approved the construction of nearly 1,600 oxygen plants in hospitals, but due to the time required to import them, as of the beginning of last month, only less than 300 have been established.
High antibody levels
Almost all states are preparing special pediatric wards, as some experts warn that unvaccinated children may be vulnerable to any new virus mutations. States including Madhya Pradesh are also stocking antiviral drugs, such as remdesivir.
However, a government survey estimates that as many as two-thirds of Indians have acquired anti-Covid antibodies through natural infections, and 57% of adults have received at least the initial vaccine dose, so many health experts believe that any new infections Eruptions may be much less destructive than the second wave.
K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Indian Public Health Foundation, epidemiologist and cardiologist, said: “The number of susceptible people will now decrease because many people have been infected or vaccinated.”
“Even if re-infection or breakthrough infections occur, they are likely to be mild and are mostly managed at home. The significant gaps in health service delivery that are apparent in the second wave are unlikely to be seen.”
Kerala has already seen such signs. Southern states currently have the largest number of infections, many of whom are vaccinated or partially vaccinated residents, but their mortality rate is much lower than the national figure.
India has reported 33.1 million COVID-19 cases, second only to the United States, with 441,042 deaths. It has received 698.4 million doses of the vaccine-of its 944 million adults, at least 57% received one dose of the vaccine and 17% received two doses of the vaccine.
The Ministry of Health hoped to immunize all adult populations in India this year, but did not respond to a request for comment on its preparations for a possible third wave of outbreaks.
Epidemiologist and public health expert Chandrakant Lahariya said the data and trends are encouraging.
“With emerging evidence that, for people who have been infected in the past, a single vaccination may provide higher levels of antibodies than people who have not been infected or vaccinated twice at the same time. This is a guarantee for India.”
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