Coronavirus India Live Updates: Need to utlilise full potential of industry to meet oxygen demand, PM tells industry heads

Coronavirus (Covid-19) India Lockdown News Live Updates: Chairing a meeting with chief ministers of different states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday said the railway and Air Force have been deployed to reduce the travel and turnaround time for oxygen tankers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday held a meeting with leading oxygen manufacturers across the country, asking them to utilise the industry’s full potential to meet medical oxygen demand in the coming days. The PM said there was a need to increase the availability of oxygen cylinders as well as to upgrade logistical facilities for its transportation, PTI reported.

Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approves emergency use for Zydus Cadila’s Pegylated Interferon alpha-2b, ‘Virafin’ for the treatment of moderate Covid-19 infection in adults. A single dose of Virafin shows significant improvement as 91.15% of patients were tested RT PCR negative by day 7. It also reduces hours of supplemental oxygen in the patients.

Chairing a meeting with chief ministers of different states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday said the railway and Air Force have been deployed to reduce the travel and turnaround time for oxygen tankers so that states facing a shortage of medical oxygen could get it in time. The PM also said that every state should ensure that no oxygen tanker, meant for any state, is stopped or gets stranded.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, during his meeting with PM Modi, highlighted the crippling oxygen crisis in hospitals in the capital. The meeting between the two leaders came as at least 25 critically ill patients who were on high flow oxygen at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital died in the last 24 hours. In another incident, a fire at a Covid-19 hospital in Vasai on Friday claimed the lives of at least 13 patients. The fire broke out in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Vijay Vallabh Hospital, which is treating Covid-19 patients.

India recorded over 3 lakh cases for the second straight day on Friday, clocking 3,32,730 cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed. With this, India’s trend of registering the world’s highest daily tally continues, pushing the country’s total infection count to 16,263,695 cases. As many as 2,263 people also died of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, mounting the coronavirus death toll to 186,920