Empty oxygen tanks were transported to production plants by Indian Air Force C-17 and IL-76 transports. (Photo: ANI) By all means, day and night, the Government of India is working hard to produce and transport as much medical oxygen as possible to areas severely affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, including the capital New Delhi and the states in the West and South. The country’s Supreme Court even allowed the operation of a copper production complex in the state of Tamil Nadu, which has been suspended, only for the purpose of bringing back an industrial oxygen production plant located there. production to meet current urgent needs. However, severe shortages and even depletion of oxygen still occur in hotspots of disease. So the reason is why? A cargo train transports liquid oxygen vehicles from Visakhapatnam city, Andhra Pradesh state to Maharashtra state – India’s largest Covid-19 epidemic zone. (Photo: ANI) Hospital has depleted medical oxygen? The current emergency scarcity is not that Indian hospitals have run out of oxygen. Is that oxygen being delivered to these locations in time? The delay in delivering this product originated from the location of the manufacturing plant. In the capital New Delhi, for example, over the past week, many hospitals that do not have the capacity to meet their own medical oxygen needs have struggled to find emergency supplies. However, at the same time, the epidemic situation in neighboring New Delhi such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also progressed too badly. local demand in advance. As a result, hospitals in New Delhi have to place orders from factories further away in industrial zones in eastern India. Oxygen storage tanks in a hospital warehouse in New Delhi. (Photo: ANI) New problem arises again Industrial oxygen production plants serving the Indian capital are located in seven different states. Some factories are more than 1,000 kilometers from New Delhi. Due to the flammable nature of this material, all liquefied oxygen shipments must be transported in special storage tanks, with detailed shipping plans to ensure on-time delivery. And over the past few days, when the demand for medical oxygen in India has peaked, localities have acted to make it difficult to transport oxygen to meet the local demand first. Because of these moves, New Delhi received only 177 tons of pure oxygen on April 21, instead of 378 tons as allocated. However, some local sources claim that hospitals in New Delhi have made it difficult for themselves to order goods without taking into account the time it takes to transport oxygen across many states by road. “The problem did not arise if they calculated and ordered from 2-3 weeks ago.” This source told the Economic Times. The New Delhi government also did not respond to questions about the planning. A Covid-19 patient had to breathe oxygen while waiting to be placed in a hospital bed at LNJP Hospital, New Delhi. (Photo: ANI) India has enough capacity to produce oxygen for medical purposes India’s daily oxygen production capacity can amount to as little as 7,100 tons, including for industrial purposes. This amount is sufficient to meet the current demand. This week, the Government of India decided to allocate 6,822 tons of liquid oxygen per day to the 20 states most affected by Covid-19. This amount is larger than the total demand of these localities, which is 6,785 tons. Thus, the demand for oxygen for health care in India has nearly doubled in just one week. On April 12, the amount of oxygen required by the health sector was only about 3,842 tons. According to the Office of the Prime Minister of India, India’s oxygen capacity has increased by 3,300 tons in just a few days by shifting resources for steel production and industry to the medical sector. All of which are intended to serve Covid-19 patients The logistics of transporting oxygen is a priority at the moment. The Indian government has mobilized freight trains to move liquid oxygen tanks from the factory to localities in urgent need. The country uses Air Force cargo jets to transfer empty tanks to the factory. Then these oxygen tanks are refilled again and returned by road. In addition, the Indian military is importing 23 mobile oxygen production machines from Germany to prepare for the worse situation. Many industries are also reported to be supporting pure oxygen in hospitals. Tata multidisciplinary corporation of India has imported 24 specialized containers to transport liquid oxygen. The government has also ordered the conversion of argon and nitrogen storage tanks for medical oxygen transport. However, according to experts, with the increasing rate of SARS-CoV-2 virus infections as in the past days with more than 300,000 people per day, the demand for oxygen for medical purposes will continue to escalate. India needs to prepare to increase production and distribution of this particular type of medical supplies in the coming days.

The fire at a hospital in the Virar area of ​​Mumbai suburbs occurred two days after 24 patients using the COVID-19 ventilator died from an oxygen leak at a hospital in Nashik, another city in the state Maharashtra. At the time of the fire, about 90 patients were being treated in the hospital, some patients needing oxygen were transferred to nearby hospitals. Dilip Shah, CEO of Vijay Vallabh Hospital, said the fire in the intensive care unit on the second floor had been extinguished. Cause of the fire is currently under investigation. The fire came as the state of Maharashtra, hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, is struggling with skyrocketing infections. 314,835 COVID-19 cases recorded in India on Thursday brought the total number of cases in the country since the pandemic began to 15.9 million, second only to the United States. This is also the 7th consecutive day that India has recorded a number of new cases above 200,000. The COVID-19 pandemic had gone badly and put the health system in this country at risk of collapse. Hospitals are overloaded with patients and a serious shortage of manpower. Many hospitals in the western and northern regions of India, including the capital New Delhi, announced that the supply of oxygen was about to be depleted. Sponsorship news

Health experts fear that the double strain is gradually invading the country of 1.3 billion people, making the Covid-19 wave more dangerous than ever. On April 17, according SCMP, India has recorded a total of 14.2 million SARS-CoV-2 infections, ranking 2nd globally and more than 174,300 deaths. Since mid-March, the Covid-19 epidemic in India suddenly became complicated again because of the emergence of a double-strain. “Dual mutants” Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the dual-strain in India is falling into the interest of experts. “Two of the mutations it possesses have been found in other strains in the world,” added Maria. According to the expert, this makes the double variant in India possible to increase transmission, reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. The second wave of Covid-19 threatens to destroy all of the country’s anti-epidemic efforts, despite harsh measures. The double-strain variant, B.1.617, was first detected in India with 2 mutants E484Q and L452R at the same time. Migrant workers crowded on a bus to their homeland when New Delhi was frozen in March 2020. Photo: AP. Viruses are always changing, it’s part of evolutionary biology. Some mutations weaken the virus, but others allow it to multiply, thrive, or spread faster. According to the Outbreak – a data site using the GISAID global storage system – the popularity of this double strain has increased by 52% compared to genetically sequenced samples in almost January. According to Anurag Agrawal, director of the Indian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, after the Geomomics Institute for genetic sequencing, some districts of the state of Maharashtra, the epicenter of the current wave, the rate of double-mutation infection increased. to more than 60%. B.1.617 appeared in patient samples in 10 states of India. Mr. Agrawal predicts that this number will be increased by two key mutations that make it infectious, immune-resistant. Rakesh Mishra, director of the Center for Cell and Molecular Biology, based in Hyderabad, responsible for the nCoV genome project, warns: “This strain spreads faster than any other found. before. Sooner or later, it will become a popular strain of all India ”, According to Mr. Agrawal, the characteristics of the double strain variable are being investigated and analyzed by experts. The L452R mutation once made the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US wobbly. The L452R mutation increased viral transmission by 20% and antibody efficiency by 50%, he said. “Variant B. 1.617 has all the signs of a very dangerous virus. We have to do everything we can to identify the spread and stop it, ”said William A. Haseltine, former professor of Harvard Medical School, USA, wrote on Forbes on April 12. According to the Outbreak, B.1.617 detected in at least 10 countries and territories, including UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand. The funeral system in India is overcrowded because of a record high number of deaths. Photo: Anadolu Agency. “There are corpses everywhere” According to the VICE , in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, videos of the huge number of cremated bodies spread at breakneck speed. It is like wildfire. On April 15, a reporter of the company The Print describes this horrifying scene as “corpses everywhere”, “every 10 minutes a body must be cremated”. Not only were the bodies that had died because Covid-19 needed cremation, but the cemeteries in India were overrun with the dead. An employee at Baikunth Dham shared with The Print: “We are overworked. After the holiday season, the number of deaths began to increase. I haven’t taken a break since last year. Every day, nearly 60-65 bodies are brought here. Pointing his finger towards the injured leg, the person added: “I had an accident but I can’t rest. The number of people who died lately is not a normal number. Many people have to wait 5-6 hours for it. Their relatives were cremated in turn. Before that, the average number was about 20-25 bodies. ” However, no one can determine whether all these deaths were due to Covid-19 or something else. An Indian woman is given the Covid-19 vaccine. Photo: Reuters. A shortage of hospital beds and pre-treatment deaths are common in India – similar to what happened in Brazil or the US recently. There is also a critical shortage of drugs used urgently during the Covid-19 pandemic, Remdesivir and Tocilizumab. People have to go to the black market to find medicine. Apart from Lucknow, cemeteries in other cities are also overloaded. In Bhopal, central India, some cremation facilities report they receive 40 bodies a day. In the capital New Delhi, a cremation site received more than 400 deaths from Covid-19 in the first 13 days of April. In the city of Gujarat, western India, a man has to wait 12 hours for his brother. in the past, the victim died of Covid-19, and was allowed to go to his final resting place. The big problem facing India is that the vaccination rate is too low. From February 16 to April 16, the number of people vaccinated in this country was 14.9 million, accounting for only 1.1% of the population. Many experts warn that at the current rate of immunization, it could take India up to 10 years to fully cover 70% of the population.