The Narendra Modi government is conducting a review to check the readiness of Covid-19 critical medical devices for the possible third wave, News18.com has learnt.
The task force formed by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) — under the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers — has suggested creating a national stockpile of around 50 Covid-19 critical items in four geographical zones. The list includes items for which India is fully or partially import dependent such as ICU beds, monitoring equipments, oxygen tubes, breathing masks, auto-disable syringes among others.
The task force — which was formed in June — was given scenarios of demand based on the assumptions of possible cases in the third wave. “The panel captured potential demand and manufacturing capacity of odd 50 items and divided them into red, orange and green. Red means critical for immediate procurement, orange means shortages possible and green means no shortage expected,” an official, who was part of the panel, told News18.com.
News18.com reached out to S. Aparna, secretary, DoP, for official comments. However, she didn’t respond to the text messages.
Preparations to be done based on 3 scenarios
The worst case scenario, according to the official, was 6 lakh cases per day — which was 2 lakh more than the peak of the second wave. “This is improbable but preparations should be done considering the worst scenarios. The other two assumptions were 3 lakh per day and 4 lakh per day cases.”
“The report by the taskforce will now be presented to the empowered committee formed by the central government.”
The taskforce consists of industry heads such as Vishwaprasad Alva, FICCI’s co-chair for medical devices, Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator, Association of Indian medical device industry, Himanshu Baid, Chairman, CII Medical Technology Division, representatives from public sector units such as HLL, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) among others.
Industry alerted centre to start preparations
According to the letter shot by Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry — on June 26 to the DoP’s secretary — India needs to prepare in advance for the third wave by creating a national stockpile along with other recommendations such as creation of a list of capable domestic and foreign companies who have manufacturing licenses.
“Following the letter, the task force was formed,” Nath, who was part of the panel, told News18.com without divulging further details.
Another member of the task force said, “It was a joint industry report with the Ministry of Health and Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP). The data has been shared with the DoP.”
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