NEW DELHI: Health care personnel in India face a dire situation in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic with a shortage of quality

(PPE) looming as Indian manufacturers say they don’t know what to produce in the absence of health ministry specifications for them.

PPE manufacturers have been seeking specifications and testing protocols from the health ministry since mid-February, but the ministry is make public these specifications. Without quality specifications, it is anyone’s guess what kind of equipment is being procured.

Shortage of proper protection equipment has been one of the reasons for infections among health workers. Of 2,629 health workers infected in Italy, 13 have lost their lives. Of over 3,300 healthcare workers infected in China by early March, 22 died. There have been sporadic reports of doctors/nurses testing positive in India too, increasing the sense of insecurity among medical personnel, many of whom took to social media to talk about the shortage of protective gear.

On fixing specification, government sources said, “The textile ministry was to hold a meeting to modify the specifications to tailor them to what tests can be done in India. The baseline specifications are the same as for Ebola, but we do not have all the tests that need to be done for Ebola level equipment in India. The tests used to be done in the European Union, with certification by ISO.”

Minutes of a meeting held under the aegis of the textile ministry on March 18th, accessed by TOI, show how grim the situation is. The health ministry requires 7.25 lakh body overalls, 60 lakh N-95 masks and 1 crore 3-ply masks and orders for these have been placed. “However, there is a shortage of material and the rate of supply is not able to meet the rising demand,” the minutes noted. They added that with state governments also asking for protective textiles, the “demand is likely to further increase”. This is not even counting the number of such protective gear needed in the private sector.

“In an epidemic, health protection gear ought to be the responsibility of the health ministry. How can they shift blame to textile ministry?” asked Rajiv Nath of AiMed, an umbrella organization of Indian manufacturers of medical devices. AiMed had on Feb 8 urged the health ministry to start stocking up masks, protective gear, thermometers etc in view of shortages reported in other countries.

Preventive

Association of India (PWMAI) chairman Dr Sanjiiiv said that Indian companies were frustrated with the way they were being tossed from one bureaucrat to another with no decision being taken. “We have written several times to the health ministry from February 12 onwards and met many of them too. You can imagine their sense of urgency when they still haven’t managed to come out with specifications, over a month later. Without specifications, anyone can supply inferior stuff and that could endanger the lives of our health workers. Not putting specifications in the public domain also means that you can order protective gear from anyone whether they meet quality standards or not,” said Dr Sanjiiiv.

Health ministry claimed that the government had procured adequate amount of protective gear for its own facilities. When asked how the government had done procurement without setting standards, it was suggested to contact Dr T Rajasekhar of HLL.

, a PSU, is the procurer of protective equipment for the government.

told TOI that HLL had internal partners from whom they procured and for more details about testing protocol suggested getting in touch with Dr P Raveendran director of

and Dr

, joint secretary in the health ministry. Ministry officials told TOI that standards for PPEs were already available and that they were revised recently. They claimed these have been shared with relevant stakeholders but not posted on the website because it was a technical document.