Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 25: As India recorded 3,49,391 new Covid-19 cases and 2,767 deaths in the last 24 hours., the centre hoped that a series of steps being taken by the government should ease the oxygen supply problem in all parts of the country in the next five to six days.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said his government had taken an important decision “to boost oxygen availability to hospitals and help people” across the country. “Medical oxygen generation plants will be set up in every district using the PM-Cares Fund,” Modi announced. The move comes as the country battles a deadly second wave with frightening surge in Covid cases in the country.
Another silver lining in the otherwise gloomy situation came from the United States which after a week indicating that it would not be lifting a ban on exports of key ingredients required in vaccine manufacture, on Sunday vowed to support India in its battle against an aggressive second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the country was working around the clock to deploy supplies to help India tide over the crisis.
“The US is deeply concerned by the severe Covid outbreak in India. We’re working around the clock to deploy more supplies and support to our friends and partners in India as they bravely battle this pandemic. More very soon,” Sullivan said at a press briefing.
Worldwide, a daily record of more than 893,000 Covid-19 cases was recorded on Sunday beating the previous daily high of 819,000 cases on January 8, in which India alone contributing around 3.50 lakh cases. Over the course of a week, more than 5.5 million cases were recorded worldwide. Other countries trailing India with the most new infections are the US (490,000 cases in one week), Brazil (459,000) and Turkey (404,000).
India’s total tally of coronavirus infections went up to 16,960,172, according to Union ministry of health and family welfare. The single-day death toll also made a new record with the total tally of casualties going up to 192,311. While the recovery rate stood at 83.49 per cent as 14,085,110 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, the active cases in the country were 2,682,751 constituting around 15.37 per cent of the total cases.
According to a central government spokesman, the PM CARES Fund has approved allocation of funds for setting up 551 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) medical oxygen generation plants at public health facilities in the country. With 162 such plants approved earlier, the decision would lead to setting up of an oxygen plant in all districts with government hospitals, an official said.
A tweet from the Prime Minister’s Twitter handle about the development said, “Oxygen plants in every district to ensure adequate oxygen availability… An important decision that will boost oxygen availability to hospitals and help people across the nation. (Sic)”.
The PMO said the Fund had given in-principle approval to 551 PSA oxygen generation plants “in line with Prime Minister’s direction of boosting availability of oxygen to hospitals”. The decision came in the wake of oxygen shortages at hospitals in the country amidst a surge of COVID-19 cases.
Prime Minister had ordered the plants to be set up as soon as possible and said they would boost oxygen availability at the district level, the statement said.
The plants would come up in selected government hospitals in district headquarters and the procurement would be done via the Health and Family Welfare Ministry, it said.
“The basic aim behind establishing PSA oxygen generation plants at government hospitals in the district headquarters is to further strengthen the public health system and ensure that each of these hospitals has a captive oxygen generation facility. Such an in-house captive oxygen generation facility would address the day-to-day medical oxygen needs of these hospitals and the district,” the PMO said.
It added that the liquid medical oxygen would serve as a top-up to the captive oxygen generation.
“Such a system will go a long way in ensuring that government hospitals in the districts do not face sudden disruption of oxygen supplies and have access to adequate uninterrupted oxygen supply to manage the COVID-19 patients and other patients needing such support,” the PMO said.
The PM CARES Fund had allocated ₹201.58 crore for installation of 162 PSA medical oxygen generation plants in public health facilities earlier this year, it added. In all more than 700 medical oxygen generation plants have been approved by the Prime Minister’s office so far this year.
Hospitals across the country have been overwhelmed due to the surge in Covid infections. Top hospitals in Delhi have been sending out SOS messages over oxygen shortage; some of them have approached the high court. Amid nationwide surge in infections, the Prime Minister has said that these plants should be made functional as soon as possible, the official statement said.
On Saturday, the government said customs duty and health cess on the import of Covid vaccines and oxygen have been waived for a period of three months. The waiver includes import of equipment related to supplying patients – whether due to Covid or otherwise – with oxygen, such as generators, storage tanks, filling systems and concentrators.
In addition, supply of oxygen was being boosted with the help coming from various quarters as more states are seeking railways’ assistance for delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) via ‘Oxygen Express’ trains.
Four cryogenic tankers carrying Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) on board the ‘Oxygen Express’ train are scheduled to depart from Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) steel plant in Raigargh, Chhattisgarh for New Delhi tonight, the railway ministry said on Sunday.
“One Oxygen Express train carrying four tankers (around 70 tonnes of LMO) will depart tonight for Delhi Cantt. from JSPL, Raigarh,” a railway ministry spokesperson said.
The Indian Railways has so far moved 10 oxygen tankers of total 150 MT with 9 more on the move, railway board chairman Suneet Sharma said at a press conference on Sunday.
This comes at a time when Delhi hospitals are struggling with an acute shortage of oxygen for the sixth consecutive day with some ending up turning away Covid-19 patients. On Saturday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal sent an urgent SOS to chief ministers of all states, requesting them to send to the national capital whatever surplus oxygen and tankers that they could spare.
With Delhi’s daily oxygen allocation being 480MT, Kejriwal has said the city currently requires about 700MT, given the massive surge in fresh Covid-19 cases — the national capital has been reporting nearly or over 25,000 cases every day for the past one week at least.
The Indian Railways have also planned more Oxygen Express trains to Andhra Pradesh, UP, Maharashtra, Telangana, Delhi and MP in the coming weeks. The first Oxygen Express train departed from Mumbai to Vizag on April 19. From April 22 to 24, four trains have also operated from Lucknow to Bokaro and back, the railways said adding that it has delivered around 150 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen so far. Each tanker has a capacity of around 15-16 MT.
The Indian Railways last week decided to deploy the first-of-a-kind ‘Oxygen Express’ trains over the next few days to transport Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) and Oxygen cylinders in bulk along key corridors, amid high demand from states grappling with a deadly second wave of Covid-19 cases.
With several states reporting a shortage of oxygen, the government last week directed them to ensure uninterrupted movement of medical oxygen carrying vehicles along their borders and said they must not impose any curbs on production and supply of the essential public health commodity anywhere.
As the covid situation continue to remain grim, Kejriwal extended the lockdown in the national capital by a week till May 3. “The corona situation had worsened, which is why we started a 6-day lockdown last week, which ends tomorrow morning. With cases rising at a rapid rate, it was necessary for us to start a lockdown,” he said. “It was a weapon we wielded to fight the pandemic. Given that cases are still rising, we have consulted with the people of Delhi and decided to extend the lockdown by one more week,” Kejriwal said.
All shops and business establishments remained shut at important shopping centres in Puducherry on Sunday after a 55-hour long weekend lockdown was imposed to check the spread of coronavirus. All major thoroughfares wore a deserted look as people stayed indoors. However, functioning of essential services was permitted till 2 pm to facilitate the availability of vegetables, groceries and other requirements.
While BKC jumbo COVID19 vaccination centre in Mumbai ran out of stock of vaccines, four Congress-ruled states accused the Centre of “hijacking” vaccine stocks from manufacturers, and expressed doubts they would be able to launch the inoculation drive to cover those between 18-45 years of age from May 1.
They also accused the Centre of meting out “step-motherly” treatment to them, and urged the Union government to provide them free vaccine doses to vaccinate all adults.
Addressing a virtual joint press conference, the health ministers of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Jharkhand (ruled by Congress-JMM alliance) asked as to how they will vaccinate all adults when the Centre has already “taken away the stocks” and shots are not available to them.
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech has written to the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) seeking extension on the shelf-life of its Covid-1vaccine, Covaxin, from 6 to 24 months.