oxygen
Khulna gasps for breath
Amid an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths over the past few weeks, Khulna division is now clamouring for oxygen -- a component key in saving the lives of critical patients.
While few hospitals in Khulna division have already run out of the life-saving gas, many other medical facilities are operating on the edge due to an acute shortage of oxygen.
In the past week, seven breathless Covid-19 patients have died at Satkhira Medical College Hospital in Satkhira district due to the unavailability of oxygen. A probe has been ordered into the deaths on June 30.
Also read: Dire situation at Jhenaidah as infections soar, Covid unit overrun, oxygen to run out in 3 days
In Khulna district, the largest specialised government hospital is overwhelmed by a sudden surge in Covid cases -- it has not only stopped corona testing but is also scrambling for beds and oxygen.
'Project O2 for India' initiated to meet rising oxygen demand
The office of the Principal Scientific Adviser of Indian Government on Sunday said ''Project O2 for India'' has been initiated to ensure supply of critical raw materials such as zeolites, setting up of small oxygen plants, and manufacturing of compressors. according to a report of NDTV.
The second wave of COVID-19 saw an increase in demand for medical oxygen in different parts of the country, it said in a statement.
Read: Supreme Court steps in to resolve India's oxygen crisis
While meeting the current demand, manufacturing medical oxygen also became important to ensure the country has adequate supply in the future.
"Project O2 for India" of the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser is to enable stakeholders working to augment the country's ability to meet this rise in demand for medical oxygen.
"Under Project O2 for India, a National Consortium of Oxygen is enabling the national level supply of critical raw materials such as zeolites, setting up of small oxygen plants, manufacturing compressors, final products, i.e.,oxygen plants, concentrators, and ventilators," according to the statement.
Read: 24 die in southern India hospital due to oxygen shortage
The consortium is not only looking forward to providing immediate to short-term relief but also working to strengthen the manufacturing ecosystem for long-term preparedness.
A committee of experts has been evaluating critical equipment such as oxygen plants, concentrators, and ventilators from a pool of India-based manufacturers, start-ups, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
The manufacturing and supply consortium includes Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL); Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE); C-CAMP, Bengaluru; IIT Kanpur; IIT Delhi; IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad; IISER, Bhopal; Venture Center, Pune; and more than 40 MSMEs, it said.
Read Why Shouldn’t You Store Oxygen Cylinder at Home During COVID-19 Pandemic?
The consortium has started to secure CSR/philanthropic grants from organisations like USAID, Edwards Life sciences Foundation, Climate Works Foundation, etc, it said.
Hope Foundation, American Indian Foundation, Walmart, Hitachi, BNP Paribas, and eInfoChips are procuring oxygen concentrators and VPSA/PSA plants as part of their CSR efforts to aid the consortium's work.
NMDC Ltd has agreed to fund the procurement of raw materials like zeolite for the manufacturers in the consortium, it added.
Read Oxygen plant to be set up at Osmani Medical College Hospital
Source: NDTV
No oxygen shortage in frontier districts: DGHS
The frontier districts of Bangladesh have adequate oxygen in their stocks to deal with Covid-19 patients, DGHS spokesperson Dr Nazmul Islam said on Wednesday.
“Although the Covid positivity rate in frontier districts is much higher than the rest of the country, there’s no need to panic as hospitals have adequate medical supplies alongside oxygen in their stocks,” said the spokesperson of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
He said about 1,569 high-flow nasal cannulas and 1,469 oxygen concentrators have been provided across the country. “We also have more than 23,000 oxygen cylinders.”
READ: Focus on black fungus as it adds to woes, says DGHS
Nazmul Islam, however, said, “Everyone should follow health guidelines as Covid infection rate is on the rise again.”
According to the initial plan, he said, Pfizer vaccine will be given only in the capital. This vaccine will be given on a priority basis to those who have got registered, he added.
If students are there in the list, they will also be given priority, he said adding, “The date on which the Pfizer vaccination programme will begin has not yet been fixed.”
Covid situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh recorded 34 more coronavirus-related deaths and 1,988 new cases in 24 hours till Wednesday morning as the country continues to grapple with the pandemic situation.
READ: Covid positivity rate rises in Bangladesh, 34 more die
The daily infection rate increased to 9.81 percent from Tuesday’s 9.47 percent, while the mortality rate remained static at 1.58 percent.
Among the deceased, 11 died in Dhaka division while five each in Khulna, Chattogram and Rajshahi divisions, 3 each in Sylhet and Rangpur and one in Barishal divisions.
Lockdown in districts
District administrations have been given the authority to enforce lockdowns in their areas if the Covid-19 situation deteriorates there, the cabinet secretary said on Monday.
READ: DGHS urges holidaymakers to return to Dhaka after 14 days
The government has already given such an instruction to local administrations, said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam at a press briefing after a virtual Cabinet meeting held with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
India continues to reel under the twin burdens of a huge surge in Covid-19 cases and an acute shortage of medical oxygen.
At least 11 Covid-19 patients on life support died at a private hospital in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh late on Monday night due to a sudden disruption in oxygen supply, officials said on Tuesday.
The deaths occurred at Ruia Hospital in Andhra Pradesh's temple town of Tirupati in Chittoor district. As many as 700 Covid patients are being treated at the hospital.
Chittoor District Collector M Hari Narayanan attributed the deaths to a delay in reloading the hospital's main oxygen cylinder.
"The delay in arrival of oxygen tankers from Tamil Nadu had triggered the crisis. The temporary disruption led the oxygen pressure to drop, resulting in the deaths. The oxygen supply was restored within five minutes. Because of this we could prevent more casualties," Narayanan told the media.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government failing miserably to stem the oxygen crisis, the country's Supreme Court on Saturday set up a 12-member National Task Force to assess the availability of the life-saving gas across the country and help resolve the crisis at the earliest.
Read Also: India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
"The rationale for constituting a Task Force at a national level is to facilitate public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialised domain knowledge. We expect leading experts in the country shall associate with the Task Force, as members and resource persons," the court had said.
In fact, several hospitals in India are facing an acute shortage of oxygen as the country witnesses a ferocious second wave of Covid. In the past one month, at least 100 patients have died at different hospitals in the country due to a shortage of oxygen.
Last week, 24 patients on life support lost their lives at a government medical facility in the southern state of Karnataka after it allegedly ran out of the life-saving gas.
Also read: 24 die in southern India hospital due to oxygen shortage
The deaths occurred at the general hospital in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district, some 200km from state capital Bengaluru. Hospital officials had said that many Covid patients on life support were among the deceased.
On May 1, some 12 people, including a Covid-positive doctor, lost their lives at Batra Hospital in the national capital after it ran out of the life-saving gas.
"Supply came at 1.30pm (a second tanker reached at around 4pm). But we were out of oxygen for 1 hour and 20 mins. By the time supplies came, 12 people, including a doctor, were dead. Most of them were Covid patients on life support," the hospital had said in a statement.
On April 24, Jaipur Golden Hospital, a dedicated Covid medical facility in Delhi, announced the death of 25 Covid patients in 24 hours due to "low-supply oxygen" to critical patients on ventilator.
And a day before, another leading hospital in Delhi also said in a statement that 25 patients lost their lives in 24 hours due to an acute shortage of oxygen. "25 sickest patients have died in the last 24 hours. Oxygen will last another two hours. Major crisis likely. Lives of 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention," Sir Ganga Ram Hospital had said.
It may also be mentioned here that as many as 24 Covid patients on ventilator at a government hospital in the western state of Maharashtra had earlier died after their oxygen supply ran out following leakage of the life-supporting gas from a tanker. The tanker was brought to Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital in Nashik district to replenish the cylinders.
As cases grow, India’s vaccination campaign falters
Since India opened vaccinations to all adults this month, hoping to tame a disastrous coronavirus surge sweeping across the country, the pace of administering the shots has dropped with states saying they only have limited stock to give out.
Cases meanwhile are still rising at record pace in the world’s second-most populous nation. Alongside a slowdown in vaccination, states have gone to court over oxygen shortages as hospitals struggle to treat a running line of COVID-19 patients.
On Sunday, India reported 403,738 confirmed cases, including 4,092 deaths. Overall, India has over 22 million confirmed infections and 240,000 deaths. Experts say both figures are undercounts.
India’s Supreme Court said Saturday it would set up a national task force consisting of top experts and doctors to conduct an “oxygen audit” to determine whether supplies from the federal government were reaching states.
Also Read: India's disaster hangs over countries facing COVID-19 surges
Complaints of oxygen shortages have dominated the top court recently, which stepped in earlier this week to make sure the federal government provided more medical oxygen to hospitals in capital New Delhi.
The country’s massive vaccination drive kicked off sluggishly in January when cases were low and exports of vaccines were high, with 64 million doses going overseas. But as infections started to rise in March and April, India’s exports drastically slowed down so doses went to its own population, reaching daily record highs. So far, around 10% of India’s population have received one shot while just under 2.5% have got both.
At its peak in early April, India was administering a record high of 3.5 million shots a day on average. But this number has consistently shrunk since, reaching an average of 1.3 million shots a day over the past week. Between April 6 and May 6, daily doses have dropped by 38%, even as cases have tripled and deaths have jumped sixfold, according to Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who has been tracking India’s epidemic.
One reason for the drop in shots is that there are just not enough available, experts say. Currently, India’s two vaccine makers produce an estimated 70 million doses each month of the two approved shots — AstraZeneca, made by the Serum Institute of India, and another by Bharat Biotech.
Vaccine supply has remained nearly the same throughout, but the target population eligible has increased by threefold, said Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert. “In the beginning, India had far more assured supply available than the demand, but now the situation has reversed,” he added.
In Kerala state, the drive to inoculate all adults is crawling along because “our single biggest problem is the very slow arrival of supplies,” said the state’s COVID-19 officer, Amar Fetle.
Also Read: India's virus surge pressures Modi to impose strict lockdown
In New Delhi, many are waiting for hours outside vaccination centers - but only after they’ve been able to book a slot.
For Gurmukh Singh, a marketing professional in the city, this has been impossible. “It gets really frustrating, having so many hospitals and vaccine centers around but not being able to get access because they are all pre-booked,” he said.
Experts also point to a new policy change by the government, which has upended how doses are being distributed.
Previously, all of the stock was bought by the federal government and then administered to the population through both public and private health facilities.
But from May 1, all available stock has been divided into two, with 50% purchased by the government going to public health centers to inoculate those above 45. The remaining half is being purchased by states and the private sector directly from manufacturers at set prices to give adults below 45.
This has led to lags as states and private hospitals, still adjusting to new rules, struggle to procure supplies on their own.
“You have now taken it out of a fairly efficient system where every dose was still centrally-controlled,” said Jacob John, a professor of community medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore. “But with market forces at play and unprepared states burdened with such a daunting task, the efficiency of the system has fallen.”
Also Read: India's govt eases hospital oxygen shortage as demand jumps
Things could change in the coming months as the government last month gave an advance to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, which could help boost manufacturing. And last week, India received its first batch of Sputnik V vaccines. Russia has signed a deal with an Indian pharmaceutical company to distribute 125 million doses.
But with vaccines currently in short supply, there are worries that those most in need are missing out. The goal should be to prioritize preventing deaths, which means fully vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable first, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, a microbiologist at Christian Medical College, Vellore.
“You need to give it (earlier) to people who are more likely to die first,” Kang said.
The fight to save Dhaka's 'oxygen bank'
Suhrawardy Udyan is often described as Dhaka's oxygen bank due to a lush canopy of trees. But the historic park seems to be under threat, having already lost a major portion of its green cover to an ongoing redevelopment project.
While authorities claim the project was undertaken to beautify Suhrawardy Udyan, citizens and green activists say trees are being chopped to make way for concrete structures on the pretext of beautification of the park.
The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs and the Ministry of Housing and Public Works are jointly implementing the development project worth Tk 265.44 crore. The project kicked off on 1 January 2018, with June 2022 being the completion deadline.
Read Trees become victims of ‘personal feud’ in Magura
Under the project, the government will construct a 6.5km walkway and seven food courts on the premises of the park. National Development Engineers Ltd has won the contract to execute the project.
However, different environmental organisations and regular visitors to the park, including students of Dhaka University, have of late intensified their protest against what they claim is the destruction of the park that is home to a variety of birds and animals.
Cases rise, pressure grows on Modi to impose strict lockdown
With coronavirus cases still surging to record levels, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing growing pressure to impose a harsh nationwide lockdown amid a debate whether restrictions imposed by individual states are enough.
Many medical experts, opposition leaders and some of the Supreme Court judges have suggested the lockdown seems to be the only option with the virus raging in cities and towns, where hospitals are forced to turn patients away while relatives scramble to find oxygen. Crematoriums and burial grounds are struggling to handle the dead.
Also Read:Harris’ family in India grapples with COVID
On Friday, India recorded a new record of 414,188 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, Its tally has risen to more than 21.4 million since the pandemic began with faint hopes of the curve going down quickly. The Health Ministry also reported 3,915 additional deaths, bringing the total to 234,083. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The official daily death count has stayed over 3,000 for the past 10 days.
Over the past month, nearly a dozen out of India’s 28 federal states have announced less stringent restrictions than the nationwide lockdown imposed for two months in March last year.
Modi, who held consultations with top elected leaders and officials of the worst-hit states on Thursday, has so far left the responsibility for fighting the virus to poorly equipped state governments.
Dr. Randeep Guleria, a government health expert, said a complete, aggressive lockdown is needed in India just like last year, especially in areas where more than 10% of those tested have contracted COVID-19.
Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a public-private consultancy, acknowledged that different states were experiencing different intensities of the epidemic, but said a “coordinated countrywide strategy” was still needed.
According to Reddy, decisions need to be based on local conditions but should be closely coordinated by the center. “Like an orchestra which plays the same sheet music but with different instruments,” he said.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, also suggested that a complete shutdown in India may be needed two to four weeks to help ease the surge of infections.
Also Read:India's govt eases hospital oxygen shortage as demand jumps
“As soon as the cases start coming down, you can vaccinate more people and get ahead of the trajectory of the outbreak of the pandemic,” Fauci said in an interview with the Indian television CNN News18 news channel on Thursday. He did not provide specifics of what a shutdown should entail.
He said it appears there are at least two types of virus variants circulating in India. He said B117, which is the U.K. variant, tends to be concentrated in New Delhi and that the 617 variant is concentrated in the worst-hit western Maharashtra state.
“Both of those have increasing capability of transmitting better and more efficiently than the original Wuhan strain a year ago,” Fauci said.
Modi imposed a two-month stringent lockdown last year on four hours’ notice. It stranded tens of millions of migrant workers who were left jobless and fled to villages with many dying along the way. Experts say the decision helped contain the virus and bought time for the government.
India’s economy contracted by 23% in April-June quarter last year and showed recovery as the restrictions were eased. The International Monetary Fund’s projection of 12.5% growth in 2021-22 financial year, beginning April, is expected to suffer again with the surge in infections.
Modi’s policy of selected lockdowns is being supported by some experts, including Vineeta Bal, a scientist at the National Institute of Immunology. She said different states have different needs, and local particularities need to be taken into account for any policy to work.
In most instances, in places where health infrastructure and expertise are good, localized restrictions at the level of a state, or even a district, are a better way to curb the spread of infections, said Bal. “A centrally mandated lockdown will just be inappropriate,” she said.
Also Read:India receives 10,000 vials of Remdisivir from Bangladesh
Dr. Yogesh Jain Ganiyari of the Peoples Health Support Group, a low-cost public health program in the central state of Chhattisgarh, said that scientifically, lockdowns are the most effective way of curbing infections.
“But we don’t live in a lab. We need to take into account the humanitarian aspect,” said Ganiyari. “Those who look at lockdowns just as disease control mechanisms are heartless. You have to think about the people.”
India grieves 200,000 dead with many more probably uncounted
Three days after his coronavirus symptoms appeared, Rajendra Karan struggled to breathe. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, his son drove him to a government hospital in Lucknow, the capital of India’s largest state.
But the hospital wouldn’t let him in without a registration slip from the district’s chief medical officer. By the time the son got it, his father had died in the car, just outside the hospital doors.
“My father would have been alive today if the hospital had just admitted him instead of waiting for a piece of paper,” Rohitas Karan said.
Stories of deaths tangled in bureaucracy and breakdowns have become dismally common in India, where deaths on Wednesday officially surged past 200,000. But the true death toll is believed to be far higher.
In India, mortality data was poor even before the pandemic, with most people dying at home and their deaths often going unregistered. The practice is particularly prevalent in rural areas, where the virus is now spreading fast.
Also read: India tops 200,000 dead as virus surge breaks health system
This is partly why this nation of nearly 1.4 billion has recorded fewer deaths than Brazil and Mexico, which have smaller populations and fewer confirmed COVID-19 cases.
While determining exact numbers in a pandemic is difficult, experts say an overreliance on official data that didn’t reflect the true extent of infections contributed to authorities being blindsided by a huge surge in recent weeks.
“People who could have been saved are dying now,” said Gautam Menon, a professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University. Menon said there has been “serious undercounting” of deaths in many states.
India had thought the worst was over when cases ebbed in September. But infections began increasing in February, and on Wednesday, 362,757 new confirmed cases, a global record, pushed the country’s total past 17.9 million, second only to the U.S.
Local media have reported discrepancies between official state tallies of the dead and actual numbers of bodies in crematoriums and burial grounds. Many crematoriums have spilled over into parking lots and other empty spaces as blazing funeral pyres light up the night sky.India’s daily deaths, which have nearly tripled in the past three weeks, also reflect a shattered and underfunded health care system. Hospitals are scrambling for more oxygen, beds, ventilators and ambulances, while families marshal their own resources in the absence of a functioning system.
Jitender Singh Shunty runs an ambulance service in New Delhi transporting COVID-19 victims’ bodies to a temporary crematorium in a parking lot. He said those who die at home are generally unaccounted for in state tallies, while the number of bodies has increased from 10 to nearly 50 daily.
“When I go home, my clothes smell of burnt flesh. I have never seen so many dead bodies in my life,” Shunty said.
Also read: 'Cannon fodder': Medical students in India feel betrayed
Burial grounds are also filling up fast. The capital’s largest Muslim graveyard is running out of space, said Mohammad Shameem, the head gravedigger, noting he was now burying nearly 40 bodies a day.
In southern Telangana state too, doctors and activists are contesting the official death counts.
On April 23, the state said 33 people had died of COVID-19. But between 80 to 100 people died in just two hospitals in the state’s capital, Hyderabad, the day before. It is unclear whether all were due to the virus, but experts say COVID-19 deaths across India aren’t being listed as such.
Instead, many are attributed to underlying conditions despite national guidelines asking states to record all suspected COVID-19 deaths, even if the patient wasn’t tested for the virus.
For instance, New Delhi officially recorded 4,000 COVID-19 deaths by Aug. 31, but this didn’t include suspected deaths, according to data accessed by The Associated Press under a right-to-information request. Fatalities have since more than tripled to over 14,500. Officials didn’t respond to queries on whether suspected deaths are now being included.
In Lucknow, officials said 39 people died of the virus in the city on Tuesday. But Suresh Chandra, who operates its Bhaisakhund electric crematorium, said his team had cremated 58 COVID-19 bodies by Tuesday evening, and 28 more were cremated at a nearby crematorium the same day.
Ajay Dwivedi, a government official in Lucknow, acknowledged more bodies were being cremated but said they included corpses from other districts.
Last year, the Indian government used low death and case counts to declare victory against the coronavirus. In October, a month after cases started to ebb, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India was saving more lives than richer countries. In January he boasted at the World Economic Forum that India’s success was incomparable.
At the heart of these statements was dubious data that shaped policy decisions.
Information about where people were getting infected and dying could have helped India better prepare for the current surge, said Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto who has studied deaths in India.
Accurate data would have allowed experts to map the virus more clearly, identifying hotspots, driving vaccinations and strengthening public health resources, he said.
“You can’t walk out of a pandemic without data,” he said.
But even when reliable data is available, it hasn’t always been heeded. With infections already rising in March, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan declared India was nearing the “endgame.” When daily cases were in the hundreds of thousands, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and other political parties were holding massive election rallies, drawing thousands of maskless supporters.
The government also allowed a Hindu festival drawing hundreds of thousands to the banks of the Ganges River to go ahead despite warnings from experts that a devastating surge was starting.
Many were already convinced COVID-19 wasn’t very lethal since the death toll seemed low.
India’s health ministry did not respond to queries from AP, and ministers from Modi’s party deflected questions about death counts.
Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of Haryana state, told reporters Monday that the dead will never come back and that “there was no point in a debate over the number of deaths.”
Also read: India bans all electoral victory rallies
The Indian Medical Association in February said 734 doctors had died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Days later, India’s health ministry put the number at 313.
“This is criminal,” said Dr. Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum. “The government lied about the deaths of health workers first, and now they are lying about deaths of ordinary citizens.”
India records 320K cases as foreign help arrives
India recorded more than 320,000 new cases of coronavirus infection Tuesday as a grim surge of illness and death weighed on the country and its sinking health system started getting much-needed support from foreign nations.
Tuesday’s 323,144 new infections raised India’s total past 17.6 million, behind only the United States. It ended a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic, but the decline likely reflects lower weekend testing rather than reduced spread of the virus.
The health ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths in the past 24 hours, with roughly 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. The latest fatalities pushed India’s fatalities to 197,894, behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. Experts say even these figures are probably an undercount.
Also read: Virus ‘swallowing’ people in India; crematoriums overwhelmed
Foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos Tuesday of the first shipment of medical aid India received from Britain. It included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators.
Other nations like the U.S., Germany, Israel, France and Pakistan have also promised medical aid to India. The countries have said they will supply oxygen, diagnostic tests, treatments, ventilators and protective gear to help India at the time of crisis which World Health Organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday called “beyond heartbreaking.”
The surge, spurred by insidious new variants of coronavirus, has undermined the Indian government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people is facing a chronic shortage of space on its intensive care wards. Hospitals are experiencing oxygen shortages and many people are being forced to turn to makeshift facilities for mass burials and cremations as the country’s funeral services have become overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, in a bid to tackle the shortage of beds, Indian authorities are turning to train carriages, which have been converted into isolation wards. India has also started airlifting oxygen tankers to states in need. Special trains with oxygen supplies are also running in the country.
France was sending breathing machines, ICU gear and eight oxygen generators in a shipment expected to be sent later this week. Each generator can equip a hospital of 250 beds for several years, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
France will also send breathing machines, pumps and containers of liquid medical oxygen aimed at helping up to 10,000 patients per day, according to the French Foreign Ministry. That first oxygen shipment is expected to arrive from Europe to India next week.
Also read: UK to send medical supplies to India
The White House was moving to share raw materials for the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine with India by diverting some U.S. orders to the vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told The Associated Press that the Biden administration was working to satisfy other “key requests” from the Indian government, namely for personal protective equipment, tests, therapeutics and supplies of oxygen and respiratory assistance devices.
Epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were also expected to soon travel to India to assist with its virus response.
Also read: Indian court raps poll panel for rising Covid cases
Liquid oxygen import from India suspended at Benapole
Liquid oxygen import from India remained suspended at Benapole check-post for the past four days as the neighboring country has been struggling with shortage of oxygen amid the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic.
The last oxygen-laden tanker was unloaded on April 22 and last week 29 tankers with around 1,815 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen was imported from India through Benapole port, said Deputy Commissioner Mustafizur Rahman of Benapole Customs House.
Also read: Border with India to remain shut for 14 days: FM
Bangladeshi company Linde Bangladesh imported the liquid oxygen, he said.
Customs sources said every month around 30,000 metric tonnes of oxygen is imported from India as the country is one of the key exporters of oxygen to Bangladesh.
In recent times demand for oxygen cylinders increased rapidly due to the second wave of Coronavirus and the suspension also causing Bangladeshi traders a huge economic blow and crisis in the medical services.
Read Chandpur General Hospital to get oxygen plant
Representative of Indian oxygen importers and Bangladesh-India Chamber of Commerce Director Motiar Rahman said India currently suspended the export as the country witnessed a record number of infections and deaths in recent time.
Oxygen is the key factor for saving lives of Covid-19 infected patients, he said, hoping that India will resume the export for the sake of friendship between the two countries.
Linde Bangladesh is also planning to import oxygen from Singapore, he added.
Also read: Netherlands to ban flights from India over virus fears