Nepal doctors warn of escalating COVID cases of major crisis Coronavirus pandemic News

On the other side of the border due to the devastating flood in India, Nepalese doctors warned on Friday that there was a serious crisis as daily coronavirus cases were on record and hospitals were running out of beds and oxygen.

Nepal confirmed 9,070 new cases on Thursday, up from 298 years ago. More than 3,500 people have died since the pandemic began, 400 of them in the last two weeks alone, according to official data.

“There are currently no beds available at any hospital that treats COVID patients,” said Jyotindra Sharma, head of Kathmandu Hospital for Advanced Medicine and Surgery, Associated Pressi.

“Even if beds are made available, there is a great shortage of oxygen and we are not at the peak of this crisis.”

At the hospital, one of the main COVID-19 patient care facilities in Nepal, extra beds were piled up to accommodate more people. They have taken them all and the only way to be accepted is a waiting list.

“In the extreme situation, people could be dying on the streets,” Sharma said, and “it is not possible to immediately increase the capacity of hospitals.”

At the government-run Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, COVID-19 patients were lying in bed on the porch and tied to an oxygen cylinder. Others were discarded because there was not enough space or equipment.

“We are provided with the expected benefit, scarce resources and enough capacity to do what is expected,” Bishal Dhakal, who has been working with coronavirus patients since the beginning of the pandemic, told AP.

A blockade was imposed last month on major cities and towns, and this week Nepal has halted both domestic and international flights.

“We are calling on the international community to act quickly to prevent human catastrophe,” said Azmat Ullah of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of Al Jazeera.

“No one is safe if everyone is safe,” he added.

Appeal for international aid

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sharma Oli KP appealed to the international community to ensure vaccines and medical supplies to fight Nepal virus.

Nepal’s vaccination campaign, which began in January, has been uncertain after only half of India’s promised supply has been delivered.

In a country of 30 million, only 2.4 million shots have been fired from India and China, and only a small fraction of people have received two doses.

COVID-19 patient waiting for oxygen outside emergency room at Kathmandu (Nepal) hospital [Niranjan Shrestha/AP]

As cases in neighboring India rose, including religious festivals, political meetings and weddings, crowd meetings continued in the country.

Many Nepalese Kumbh Melan of India were also among the millions of Hindu devotees who attended the hospital attended by the former king, Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, and his queen, who were positive.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Ramyata Limbu, who reported from Kathmandu, said Nepalese workers were returning numbers from India to places like Uttar Pradesh – however, quarantine and isolation centers were lacking.

“The health ministry has repeatedly warned the government what would happen … but I think it’s like a case like the case in India … in early January, in February, when the cases were pretty low. So we probably felt protected,” he said.

Last week, Nepal banned Indians from using it as a transit point for Kathmandu, as more and more Indian citizens left Kathmandu after Indian flight restrictions.