Nepal – Rise in Covid19 cases cause hospital beds shortage
“A total of 5,763 Covid-19 cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours,” Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population said late Saturday. The last record of highest coronavirus cases in a day was reported on October 21 last year, when the Nepali government reported 5,743 cases.
Along with rising cases, hospitals are running out of beds which prompted the health ministry to issue a stern warning that the cases were rising at the scale that the health system was not able to cope with.
The Nepal government has decided to close 22 border points with India amid a sharp surge in COVID-19 cases in India. The decision came after the COVID Crisis Management Coordination Committee (CCMC) on Friday recommended to the Council of Ministers to shut down 22 out of a total of 35 border points between Nepal and India, according to officials.
At the same time, Nepal’s vaccination drive has slowed. India donated one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Nepal signed an agreement to purchase two million more from an Indian manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India. But India curtailed vaccine exports last month after its outbreak worsened, and Nepali officials say that the company has shipped only half the amount.
