india

Updated: Mar 28, 2020 04:14 IST

The Union government ordered for the acquisition of 40,000 new ventilators and separately shot off a letter to all states to enhance efforts to track down the tens of thousands of people who have come back from abroad, intensifying on Friday surveillance and disease mitigation measures to tackle the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Both approaches have been identified by scientists and policy makers as the most crucial in the fight against the pandemic, which has the potential to spread silently and lead to an explosion of cases that could then overwhelm health care facilities and cause an acute shortage of ventilators. The breathing devices can make a difference of life and death for severely ill patients.

There is a big gap in the number of international passengers who should have been monitored and the actual number, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba said in a letter marked to all chief secretaries, warning that it could “seriously jeopardise our efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19”.

Gauba’s letter, accessed by HT, did not indicate the total number of passengers who were under surveillance. But it underlined that the Union home ministry’s Bureau of Immigration had “shared details of more than 15 lakh incoming international passengers with the States/UTs for monitoring for Covid-19”.

India’s Covid-19 epidemic is mostly made up of cluster infections that are linked to patients who picked up the Sars-Cov-2 virus while they were abroad. As on Friday, there have been 878 cases and 18 deaths — almost all of which have been recorded this month alone.

State government officials, however, contend that the Bureau of Immigration list that was sent to them often didn’t have complete and accurate information about the passengers.

In Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and Saran districts, for instance, the authorities have been able to locate only 385 of the 500 people mentioned in the Centre’s list.

Later on Friday, the Union health ministry said that two public sector units (PSUs) will begin arranging for 40,000 ventilators.

“Ventilator shortage has been an issue that the government has been closely monitoring, and several steps are being taken to ensure hospitals are well equipped and face no shortage of ventilators that are essential in managing critical Covid-19 patients,” said Lav Aggarwal, joint secretary, Union health ministry, adding that the acquisition is likely to take a couple of months.

A ventilator augments breathing function for a person when lungs are compromised, a condition common to all Covid-19 patients for whom the disease progresses into serious stages. In countries such as Italy and now in New York, a lack of ventilators is feared to be leading to many fatalities that may have otherwise been saved.

Improving resources such as medical devices while also ramping up close monitoring of the outbreak are among strategies known as mitigation and suppression — both of which are crucial for countries to “flatten the curve” of peak health care demand so that the number of patients does not exceed the available hospital and ICU beds.

According to estimates by Indian doctors and medical equipment industry professionals, India at present has 40,000 of the breathing machines — a number experts say will be woefully inadequate in case of a surge in Covid-19 infections.

According to trends seen in China, 5% of all Covid-19 patients need to be admitted to ICUs with acute breathing problems requiring ventilators for life support.

“The BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited) has been asked to manufacture about 30,000 ventilators and the other PSU approached for the job will be giving us 10,000 units,” said Aggarwal.

India this month lifted controls on producing medical ventilators. According to a government communication reviewed by Mint, the Centre plans to ask all interested manufacturing companies, including automakers, to start producing ventilators.

The country has also prohibited export of ventilators from the country. In addition to the 40,000 ordered on Friday, the government placed an order for 1,200 ventilators

“Government is taking all necessary measures; there is no need to panic,” said Aggarwal.