In the midst of India’s efforts to tackle the severe shortage of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for healthcare personnel, the country is ramping up domestic production and importing PPEs from other countries. However, many kits donated to the Indian government, which were made in China, failed safety checks and cannot be used, reported The Economic Times.
Over 50,000 PPE Kits among a total of 170,000 that arrived in India on April 5 failed quality tests. In addition, two other small consigned also failed the tests.
Reportedly, while government officials said they are procuring CE/FDA-certified PPE kits only, the unusable kits were received as donations from big private companies in India. The kits were tested at the Defence Research and Development Organisation laboratory in Gwalior.
An order for an additional 1 million suits has been placed through traders to meet the shortfall in PPEs, the report said.
‘The number of orders being placed is growing. China is the major supplier. We were totally dependent on imports earlier and never expected that there would be a surge in demand,’ a senior government official told the media.
India has also ramped up domestic PPE production. While currently, the domestic production has increased to 30,000 kits a day, it is expected to touch 50,000 by the end of the month. Cumulatively, India has produced over 150,000 suits and is expected to manufacture an additional 100,000 by the weekend.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, April 16, Guangzhou in China, dispatched 6,50,000 coronavirus medical kits to India.
‘A total of 650,000 kits, including Rapid Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits have been despatched early today from Guangzhou Airport to #India,’ Indian Ambassador to Beijing Vikram Misri tweeted.
#IndiaFightsCoronavirus A total of 650,000 kits, including Rapid Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits have been despatched early today from Guangzhou Airport to #India | #2019nCoV #StayHomeSaveLives @MEAIndia @HarshShringla @DrSJaishankar
— Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) April 16, 2020
Furthermore, in the next 15 days, over two million kits being procured in China will be sent to India.
Meanwhile, China has asked countries to import supplies to fight COVID-19 only through reputed Chinese firms cleared by the government. It further vowed to punish those involved in counterfeit behaviour.
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