Tweet
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57055209
As India halts vaccine exports, Nepal faces its own Covid crisis
By Anbarasan Ethirajan
BBC News
Published 12 hours ago
In a choked voice, Parasuram Maurya described desperately running from one hospital to another to save his father from Covid-19.
Sundar Maurya, a farmer from the south-western town of Narainapur, complained of breathing difficulties and tested positive on 3 May. Within days, his condition worsened.
Mr Maurya took his father, who is in his mid-50s, to three medical facilities in the Banke district but all refused him admission due to a shortage of beds and oxygen. By the time he managed to find a bed, it was too late.
"We are devastated, he was the main breadwinner of the family," Mr Maurya told the BBC. "Now I have to take care of my own family and three younger brothers. My mother has been crying inconsolably."
Thousands of people like Mr Maurya have lost their loved ones in Nepal, a nation now reeling from a second wave of the virus.
"If we don't manage this right now, the situation will become catastrophic," said Dr Samir Kumar Adhikari, the chief of the government's Health Emergency Operation Centre.
"In Kathmandu valley, almost all of the intensive care beds and ventilators are full," he said. "Even in hospitals where beds are available, they cannot admit patients due to a lack of oxygen. We have also run out of vaccines."
Nepal, a Himalayan nation of about 30 million people, is one of the least developed countries in the world.
Landlocked and sandwiched between China in the north and India in the south, it depends on India for most of its supplies, especially medical equipment and liquid oxygen.
With India stopping exports of oxygen due to the worsening situation there, Kathmandu is now struggling to find alternative supplies.
Like many other Asian nations, Nepal somehow managed to escape the first wave without any serious damage.
But the second wave has been devastating. Daily infections hovered at around 150 at the beginning of April but in a month the figure has passed 9,000. More than 4,000 people have died.
Nepali health officials say the current daily positivity rate is nearly 50%, meaning that one in two people are testing positive for Covid.
An estimated 80,000 people are in home isolation, and officials are warning of many more deaths in the coming weeks.
"We rank Nepal 9th among the 10 top countries in terms of daily increase in Covid-19 cases. Of all those countries, Nepal has the smallest population but it has the highest case positivity rate," Sara Beysolow Nyanti, the UN resident co-ordinator in Nepal told the BBC...
As India halts vaccine exports, Nepal faces its own Covid crisis
By Anbarasan Ethirajan
BBC News
Published 12 hours ago
In a choked voice, Parasuram Maurya described desperately running from one hospital to another to save his father from Covid-19.
Sundar Maurya, a farmer from the south-western town of Narainapur, complained of breathing difficulties and tested positive on 3 May. Within days, his condition worsened.
Mr Maurya took his father, who is in his mid-50s, to three medical facilities in the Banke district but all refused him admission due to a shortage of beds and oxygen. By the time he managed to find a bed, it was too late.
"We are devastated, he was the main breadwinner of the family," Mr Maurya told the BBC. "Now I have to take care of my own family and three younger brothers. My mother has been crying inconsolably."
Thousands of people like Mr Maurya have lost their loved ones in Nepal, a nation now reeling from a second wave of the virus.
"If we don't manage this right now, the situation will become catastrophic," said Dr Samir Kumar Adhikari, the chief of the government's Health Emergency Operation Centre.
"In Kathmandu valley, almost all of the intensive care beds and ventilators are full," he said. "Even in hospitals where beds are available, they cannot admit patients due to a lack of oxygen. We have also run out of vaccines."
Nepal, a Himalayan nation of about 30 million people, is one of the least developed countries in the world.
Landlocked and sandwiched between China in the north and India in the south, it depends on India for most of its supplies, especially medical equipment and liquid oxygen.
With India stopping exports of oxygen due to the worsening situation there, Kathmandu is now struggling to find alternative supplies.
Like many other Asian nations, Nepal somehow managed to escape the first wave without any serious damage.
But the second wave has been devastating. Daily infections hovered at around 150 at the beginning of April but in a month the figure has passed 9,000. More than 4,000 people have died.
Nepali health officials say the current daily positivity rate is nearly 50%, meaning that one in two people are testing positive for Covid.
An estimated 80,000 people are in home isolation, and officials are warning of many more deaths in the coming weeks.
"We rank Nepal 9th among the 10 top countries in terms of daily increase in Covid-19 cases. Of all those countries, Nepal has the smallest population but it has the highest case positivity rate," Sara Beysolow Nyanti, the UN resident co-ordinator in Nepal told the BBC...
Comment