Rajasthan gasps for oxygen as new Covid-19 cases rise; Fast spread in rural areas a concern

Nearly 50 per cent of the state's cases are now coming from rural areas, and the government is scrambling to address this issue

Rajasthan continues to be ravaged by Covid-19 with over 2.1 lakh active cases, the fourth highest in the country, as patients struggle to get hospital beds, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, injections and medicines.

The state is facing a dearth of oxygen as cases continue to rise. From searching for an oxygen cylinder until getting a patient hospitalised, every step is a tough task. “For the last two days, I am trying everything to get a ventilator bed for my mother, whose CT score is 60 and keeps dropping. It took me a full day to search for an oxygen bed. All the hospitals in the Bikaner district are overwhelmed and we don’t have private facilities here. Travelling to Jaipur is also not advisable. I feel helpless," Sumit Kalla, a son struggling to find a hospital bed for his mother, told DH.

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Sumit is not alone. There are thousands of families going through similar struggles to save their loved ones who have contracted Covid-19.

“The spike in the rural areas is worrying. We are seeing at least 50 per cent of cases coming from the villages. The health department has deployed community health officers (CHOs) to provide counselling to residents on Covid-19 and conduct door-to-door surveys in the rural areas”, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma told DH.

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“To minimise the gap between the demand and the supply of medical oxygen, we have started importing oxygen concentrators from Russia and China and plan to purchase more than 28,000 such machines from different countries this month. The first batch of 100 oxygen concentrators arrived last week from Russia. The state government will purchase more than 28,000 oxygen concentrators this month”, Sharma added.

Highlighting the dire situation, the Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot took on Twitter and said, “Rajasthan now has the 4th highest active cases at 2.11 lac, which is 5.72 per cent of the total active cases of the country."

Mentioning the inadequate supply of oxygen, the chief minister wrote in the next tweet, "The present oxygen allocation is 435 MT including 125 MT of ASU. The situation is extremely fragile as there are also constraints in lifting 100 metric tonnes (MT) of allocated oxygen from Burnpur and Kalinganagar in the East and this quota has not been adequately utilised by us despite our best efforts.”

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Stressing on the need for mass vaccination in the state, health expert Dr Narendra Gupta of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan told DH, "The situation is deteriorating in Rajasthan. The infrastructure is already overwhelmed and the vaccination rate has come down. The only thing that can ease out the situation is more vaccination and utilisation of resources".

Looking forward to mass vaccination across the state, the Rajasthan government is exploring the possibility of purchasing Covid-19 vaccines from other countries through global tenders. Rajasthan has joined other states in imposing a complete lockdown for two weeks from May 10 to 24. Weddings in the state have been banned till May 30.

As of Saturday, Rajasthan state recorded 13,565 fresh Covid-19 cases and 149 deaths owing to the deadly virus. The cumulative positive cases in the state are 8,49,379 whereas the total number of patients recovered so far is 6,16,589. A total of 6,621 have died due to coronavirus in Rajasthan.