People work to build a makeshift hospital at Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium in Guwahati, India, March 26, 2020. Local government has decided to convert two stadiums in Guwahati into makeshift hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients. The death toll due to COVID-19 in India on Thursday morning rose to 13, the federal health ministry said, with 649 confirmed cases reported so far. (Str/Xinhua)
NEW DELHI, March 26 (Xinhua) -- New hospitals dedicated to treatment of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) will soon come up in 17 states in the country, the Indian government said on Thursday.
India has reported 13 deaths till Thursday morning as the total number of COVID-19 cases rose to 649.
Senior official in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal told the media that top officials in the 17 states had been directed to immediately start the work for setting up these new hospitals, and the work has begun.
"In a video conference with states' Secretaries, India's Cabinet Secretary asked them to make hospitals dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients. As many as 17 states have started to build these hospitals. Field workers are being oriented to deal with the disease, and we are using online platforms to reach each and every person in the country," Agarwal told reporters in a televised press conference.
The setting up of 17 new hospitals comes after doubts were raised recently over India's unpreparedness in combating the COVID-19.
The Foreign Affairs magazine wrote in an article published Wednesday that India was still not prepared well to tackle the COVID-19. The article said the Indian government spent only a little over 1 percent of its GDP on health care, which was among the lowest rates in the world.
"According to some estimates, India has only between 70,000 and 100,000 Intensive Care Units (ICU) beds across both the public and the private sectors. Health experts insist that India has until about April 10 to better prepare its hospitals, convert a few stadiums into isolation centers, and procure as many ventilators as possible," said the U.S. magazine.
World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Mike Ryan was recently quoted as saying that India needed to do much more than simply imposing a 21-day countrywide lockdown.
"You must have a system to find cases, you must test, you must expand your capacity to treat and isolate, you must be able to quarantine your contacts," Ryan was quoted as telling an Indian TV channel on Wednesday.
The UN body, however, praised India's decision to lock down the country at an early stage.
