E-Paper
Covid-19 aid from global community allocated to states, says Centre
The countries have been aiding India by sending oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, vials of anti-malarial drug Remdesivir and strips of Favipiravir among other critical equipment.
The Centre on Wednesday said that the medical supplies sent by the global community to help India fight the second wave of coronavirus pandemic have been allocated to the states and the Union territories.
India has been receiving international donations in the form of essential equipment required to fight the coronavirus disease from various countries across the world, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Romania, Russia, the UAE, the United States, Taiwan, Kuwait, France, Thailand, Germany, Uzbekistan, Belgium, Italy, etc.
The countries have been aiding India by sending oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, vials of anti-malarial drug Remdesivir and strips of Favipiravir among other critical equipment.
So far, India has received 1,764 oxygen concentrators, 1,760 oxygen cylinders, 450 ventilators, more than 1.35 lakh vials of Remdesivir and over 1.2 lakh strips of Favipiravir drugs, 7 oxygen generation plants, apart from shipment of N95 masks and PPE kits.
The Centre said the consignments received from the international community till Tuesday have already been allocated to the states and the Union territories. It further said that while most of the equipment has already been delivered and the rest are in transit.
"A streamlined and systematic mechanism for allocation of the support supplies received by India has been put into place by Government of India for effective distribution of the medical and other relief and support material. A Standard Operating Procedure has been framed and implemented by the Health Ministry since 2nd May, 2021. A dedicated Coordination Cell has been created in the Health Ministry to coordinate the receipt and allocation of foreign COVID relief material as grants, aid and donations. This Cell started functioning from 26th April 2021," read a statement released by the government on Wednesday.
The Union ministry of health and family welfare allocated the medical supplies and the equipment to 38 tertiary care institutions and 31 States in the first tranche, the government informed.
"This is done considering certain criteria like number of active cases, case fatality rate, positivity rate, need, etc," the statement read.
More than 40 countries, including major powers such as the US, Russia, France and Germany, have committed to provide urgently needed items and Indian and foreign corporations are helping with procurements. Indian community associations in many countries too are pitching in to provide relief materials.
