 "Oxygen")
There has been no scarcity of medical oxygen in the last 10 months as daily production capacity was enhanced to 6,862 metric tonnes by September and projected to further increase to 7,191 metric tonnes by the end of October, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
At a press conference, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the Centre, as a part of proactive interventions, has begun the process of installing oxygen generation plants in 246 hospitals 18 states and union territories in the first phase, out of which 67 were at various stages of completion.
In the second phase, such plants would be installed in 150 more hospitals across 30 states and UTs, he said while stressing that India was in a "comfortable position" in terms of oxygen availability.
"There has been no shortage of oxygen in the last 10 months. There is no paucity at present also. We are in an extremely comfortable position," Bhushan added.
As a means of abundant precaution, the health ministry has also initiated the process of importing 1 lakh metric tonnes of liquid medical oxygen to meet any exigency.
Giving more details, Bhushan said the number of COVID-19 patients on oxygen support, which include those in ICU, ventilator and oxygen supported beds, increased from 43,022 on September 1 to 75,000 in the third week of that month. The number then started declining and as of Tuesday it was over 57,000, he said.
"Though there has been a dip, it is still higher as compared to that on September 1. However, it should not be a reason to worry as our capacity is much higher," the health secretary said.
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Elucidating further, Bhushan said on an average, 2,397 metric tonnes of medical oxygen was consumed daily from September 2 to 8, and even then 15,282 metric tonnes of oxygen was in stock at the end of the week.
The average consumption increased to 2,791 MT per day from September 9 to September 15, which was the peak period of consumption. Despite that, 14,932 MT oxygen was left in stock at the end of the week, he said.
Consumption came down to 2,503 MT per day from October 6 to 14 and 17,103 MT was left at the end of the week, Bhushan added.
"Oxygen production capacity has been enhanced from 5,913 MT in April to 6,862 MT in September. It will be further increased to 7,191 MT by the end of October," the health secretary said.
Giving other details, he said more than 9.6 crore COVID-19 tests have been conducted so far. The cumulative, weekly and daily positivity rate was 7.90 per cent, 6.0 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively.
"COVID-19 fatality rate has declined from 1.77 pc on September 1 to 1.52 pc as on date. New COVID-19 cases reported in a span of 24 hours were below 50,000 after 84 days," Bhushan said.
A total of 46,790 fresh infections were reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,15,197 on Tuesday with 587 fatalities being registered in a span of 24 hours, the health ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.
Six states -- Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal -- account for 64 per cent of all active COVID-19 cases, Bhushan said.
The health secretary added that India's COVID-19 cases per million population reported in the last seven days stood at 310, while the global average was 315.
With over 67 lakh people recuperating from coronavirus infection so far,India has the largest number of recoveries in the world whileitstands second in terms of the number of tests conducted for detection of COVID-19 so far in any country.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
