India prepares for third wave with oxygen plants
INDIA aims to ramp up its medical oxygen production capacity to 15,000 tonnes per day before a potential third wave of coronavirus infections that is expected to hit the country in mid-September, an industry executive said.
The target implies a 50 per cent jump from the maximum output of almost 10,000 tonnes reached earlier this year during the peak of the second Covid-19 wave, when hospitals ran short of the gas and relatives of patients had to search out oxygen cylinders.
Linde India supplied nearly one-third of the total oxygen demand during the peak.
Moloy Banerjee, head of Linde South Asia, said while the government is targeting 15,000 tonnes of medical oxygen per day, Linde and other manufacturers were hoping to hit production of at least 13,500 tonnes per day ahead of the third wave. As of Tuesday (7), India’s total Covid-19 cases had reached 33.09 million, with the death toll at 441,401 according to health ministry data.
While demand for medical oxygen in India has considerably reduced since the peak, reaching near pre-Covid levels, gas companies along with the government are gearing up for a scenario where the third wave could be worse than the previous one.
The New Delhi government said last month it will increase oxygen production by setting up new manufacturing units or expanding the production capacity of existing units for uninterrupted oxygen supply during a health crisis.
Beds have also been added at facilities around the country, and hospitals are working to ensure ample supplies of oxygen.
New Delhi’s premier Sir Ganga Ram Hospital is raising its oxygen storage capacity by 50 per cent, has laid a one-kilometre-long pipeline carrying the gas directly to Covid ICUs, and is installing equipment to keep the oxygen flow high. It has also ordered an onsite oxygen-generation plant, which are mostly made in Europe and can take months to arrive given the surge in demand globally.
“In light of the possibility of the emergence of coronavirus mutants, with higher transmissibility and immune escape, the hospital continues to prepare for the worst,” said Satendra Katoch, medical director of the hospital.
The crowded private hospital, however, said it had no scope to add more beds. During the peak of India’s second wave, Ganga Ram expanded its capacity by nearly 50 per cent to about 600 beds, but even so, some 500 patients per day had to be put on a waitlist for admission, according to physician Varun Prakash, who managed its war-room during the crisis.
Nationally, India has added many more hospital beds in the past few months and imported more than 100 oxygen carriers to raise the total to about 1,250.
The Centre has approved the construction of nearly 1,600 oxygen-generation plants at hospitals, though fewer than 300 had been set up as of early last month as imports take time. Almost all states are readying special paediatric wards as some experts warn unvaccinated children could be vulnerable to any new virus mutations.