Oxygen supply has grown scarce in some parts of India hard hit by coronavirus, hospital and local government officials said, as India reported a record daily jump in cases for a second consecutive day, logging 97,570 new infections on Saturday.
In some parts of the state, medical oxygen was becoming hard to find. Dr Amit Thadhani, Medical Director of Niramaya Hospitals in Panvel, a suburb of India’s financial capital Mumbai, said the shortage in his area was acute.
“The problem is that the filling stations are themselves not getting supply of oxygen from the manufacturers. Supplies are extremely limited,” Dr Thadhani said.
“If we ask for 50 cylinders, we may get about 5 to 7.”
An official from the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation in a neighbouring suburb said they had received reports from multiple hospitals about dwindling oxygen supplies and made requests to state authorities.
With total cases of more than 4.65 million, India is the world’s second worst affected country, trailing only the United States, which has more than 6.4 million cases.
