A fire in a Covid-19 hospital ward in western India killed 18 patients early Saturday, as the country grappling with the worst outbreak yet steps up a vaccination drive for all its adults even though some states say don’t have enough jabs.
India on Saturday set yet another daily global record with 401,993 new cases, taking its tally to more than 19.1 million. Another 3,523 people died in the past 24 hours, raising the overall fatalities to 211,853, according to the Health Ministry. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The fire broke out in a Covid-19 ward on the ground floor and was extinguished within an hour, police said. The cause is being investigated.
Thirty-one other patients at the Welfare Hospital in Bharuch, a town in Gujarat state, were rescued by hospital workers and firefighters and their condition was stable, said police officer B.M Parmar. Eighteen others died in the blaze and smoke before rescuers could reach them, Parmar said.
On April 23, a fire in an intensive care unit killed 13 Covid-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai.
Eight Covid-19 patients, including a doctor, died at a New Delhi hospital after it ran short of oxygen supplies, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. There was no confirmation by hospital officials.
The New Delhi television news channel also said an attorney for the Batra hospital told a New Delhi court that the hospital ran out of oxygen supply for 80 minutes on Saturday before the tank was replenished.