Short on vaccines, Nepal faces looming Covid crisis

(FASTNEWS | NEPAL) – In a choked voice, Parasuram Maurya described desperately running from one hospital to another to save his father from Covid-19.

Sundar Maurya, a farmer from the south-western town of Narainapur, complained of breathing difficulties and tested positive on 3 May. Within days, his condition worsened.

Mr Maurya took his father, who is in his mid-50s, to three medical facilities in the Banke district but all refused him admission due to a shortage of beds and oxygen. By the time he managed to find a bed, it was too late.

“We are devastated, he was the main breadwinner of the family,” Mr Maurya told the BBC. “Now I have to take care of my own family and three younger brothers. My mother has been crying inconsolably.”

Thousands of people like Mr Maurya have lost their loved ones in Nepal, a nation now reeling from a second wave of the virus.

“If we don’t manage this right now, the situation will become catastrophic,” said Dr Samir Kumar Adhikari, the chief of the government’s Health Emergency Operation Centre.

“In Kathmandu valley, almost all of the intensive care beds and ventilators are full,” he said. “Even in hospitals where beds are available, they cannot admit patients due to a lack of oxygen. We have also run out of vaccines.”