NEW DELHI, 8 May: While 1,70,841 Covid patients across the country are on ventilators, as many as 9,02,291 patients are on oxygen support, union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.
In his virtual address at the 25th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) to discuss the pandemic situation, the minister said that 1.34 percent of Covid caseload was in ICU, 0.39 percent of cases were on ventilators and 3.70 percent Covid patients were on oxygen support.
He said that across the country, the number of patients in ICU beds is 4,88,861, while 1,70,841 patients were on ventilators and 9,02,291 patients were on oxygen support.
The meeting was attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S Puri, MoS for Ports, Shipping & Waterways Mansukh Mandaviya and MoS in the Ministry of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai.
MoS for Health & Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey and NITI Aayog member (health) Dr Vinod K Paul were present virtually.
Paul gave a detailed report on the work of the Empowered Group 1 and highlighted the various efforts made towards ramping up hospital infrastructure for effective clinical management of hospitalized patients.
Road, Transport & Highways Ministry Secretary Giridhar Aramane presented the current scenario of liquid medical oxygen production, allocation and supply. Aramane stated that the production of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) has been maximized to meet the present demand of Covid patients.
The domestic production has increased to more than 9400 mt/day, the health ministry quoted him, adding that he also enumerated steps to import LMO, the status of establishment of PSA oxygen plants through the support of PMCARES fund with the support of DRDO and CSIR, enhancement of tanker availability, the functioning of the web portal and mobile application for real-time tracking of LMO tankers. (PTI)
