Most of covid-related medical supplies are now produced in India

Most of the medical supplies needed for tackling the covid-19 pandemic are now being domestically manufactured, the Centre said on Thursday, indicating a boost to Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India campaigns.

Most products supplied by the government were not being manufactured in the country in the beginning. Additionally, rising global demand due to the pandemic led to them to become scarce in foreign markets, the government said.

The Centre has also been providing free medical supplies to states and Union territories to supplement their efforts to contain the spread of the disease.

Since 11 March, the government distributed over 30.4 million N95 masks and more than 12.8 million personal protection equipment kits to states, UTs and central institutions for free. Over 1.08 billion hydroxychloroquine tablets have also been distributed.

Besides, 22,533 Make in India ventilators were delivered to states, UTs and central institutions. The Centre is also ensuring their installation and commissioning, it added.

The ministries of health and family welfare, textiles, and pharmaceuticals, the department for promotion of industry and internal trade, and Defence Research and Development Organization encouraged and facilitated domestic manufactures to supply essential medical equipment.

Meanwhile, India’s covid-19 case count reached 2,434,853 on Thursday, with 47,542 fatalities. India is the third worst covid-affected country, behind the US and Brazil. However, it has one of the highest recovery rates and lowest case fatality rates. India recorded the highest ever single-day recovery of 56,383 taking the total number of discharged patients to 1,726,037. India’s recovery rate was at 70.77%, compared to 50% in the US, besides a fatality rate of 1.96% compared to 3.25% in the US and over 10% in many European countries.

India also registered 830,391 tests in the last 24 hours. The average daily tests saw a sharp rise from around 230,000 in the first week of July to over 630,000 this week, the government said. Cumulative testing as on date is 2,68,45,688 crore with the tests per million increasing to 19,453.

“India has fast paced its testing and tracing infrastructure, but much more is required. Innovations for mass testing and screening protocols need quick adoption and scaling up. India’s public and private medical research institutions have responded well to the challenge and with right support have the capacity to scale-up efforts further,” said Himanshu Sikka, lead, health, IPE Global, an international development consulting firm in healthcare.

“With a population of more than 1.38 billion people, the need of the hour is to innovate further around the mass testing and screening protocols to isolate the infected populations from further spreading the virus in the community and country,” he said.