The French aid promised to India, struggling with a violent second wave of Covid-19, arrived in New Delhi on Sunday aboard a specially chartered cargo plane, AFP noted.
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The cargo flight landed in the Indian capital early Sunday morning with 28 tons of medical equipment on board including eight large capacity oxygen generators, intended to produce medical oxygen from ambient air for hospitals , said the French authorities in a press release.
This equipment can also fill bottles with a flow rate of 20,000 liters per hour, the statement added, each plant being able to continuously supply an Indian hospital with 250 beds without interruption for a dozen years.
These oxygen plants are to be delivered Sunday to eight Indian hospitals, six in Delhi, one in the state of Haryana (north) and one in the state of Telangana (center), at the request of the Indian authorities who have identified there needs.
According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health on Saturday, New Delhi has recorded 27,000 new infections and 375 deaths in the past 24 hours.
This cargo also includes 28 respirators and 200 electric syringe pumps.
The vast country of 1.3 billion people has recorded nearly 400,000 new infections in the past 24 hours.
“India helped us last year in French hospitals, when the need for drugs was enormous. The French people remember it ”, declared Sunday Emmanuel Lenain, the French ambassador to India. “We wanted to show solidarity, now that the country is facing difficulties.”
New Delhi authorities announced on Saturday the extension of the city’s confinement for a week.
Containment was originally scheduled to end on Monday, but the number of new cases continues to rise rapidly in the huge city of 20 million people.
With a positivity rate reaching almost 33% in coronavirus tests, experts believe the real numbers are much higher.
Hospitals in the city are inundated with sick people, leading to shortages of beds, medicines and oxygen with often fatal consequences for many people, who die in front of establishments without being able to be treated.
Most of New Delhi’s cemeteries are now full and many crematoriums are in continuous operation, with the influx of deaths sometimes forcing bodies to be cremated on vacant lots or parking lots.
In April, the city recorded more than 7 million new coronavirus infections.