By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 15: The Ministry of Health and Population has allocated budget to various government hospitals in all seven States for COVID-19 treatment.
The ministry has provided the budget to the hospitals for the management of ICUs, ventilators and other services.
A budget of Rs.30 million each has been sent to six large hospitals based in the six states-- Koshi, Narayani, Bharatpur, Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences, Bheri and Dadeldhura Hospital for the arrangement of 15 ICUs, including five ventilators, informed Jageshwor Gautam, MoHP Spokesperson at today’s daily press briefing at the ministry.
Similarly, Rs.20 million has been sent to Karnali Academy of Health Sciences for the management of 10 ICUs with four ventilators, he added.
Likewise, Dr. Gautam also shared the details regarding the release of Rs. 200 million to various other government hospitals for the management of 100 ICUs with 34 ventilators as per the Ministry’s decision last month on the allocation from the COVID-19 fund. These hospitals include TU Teaching Hospital (TUTH) Maharajgunj, Dhulikhel Hospital, Nepal Police Hospital and Sahid Gangalal National Heart Hospital.
Furthermore, Dr. Gautam informed that Rs.280 million has been sent to 14 State-based hospitals with Rs.20 million to each for the management of ICUs and ventilators.
Similarly, the government has released Rs.10 million each to the 649 local levels, which do not have a hospital, for the construction of 5-bed hospitals as per government policy.
305 patients in ICUs
Meanwhile, Nepal recorded 2,638 new cases of the COVID-19 infection on Wednesday. With this, the national COVID-19 caseload has surged to 117,996 with 675 deaths. Of the total new cases today, 1,403 were recorded in the Kathmandu Valley, the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) confirmed.
Among the total caseload, 36,367 are active cases while the number of recovered has reached 80,954. Of the 13,947 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests conducted in the last 24 hours, as many as 2,638 persons were found to have been infected with COVID-19, informed Dr. Gautam.
Currently, 14,819 patients are receiving treatment in institutional isolations and 21,548 are in home isolation, according to the MoHP daily report.
Of the active cases, 305 patients are admitted to the intensive care units (ICU) of hospitals across the seven states. State wise data on ICU patients shows 39 patients in State 1 and 19 in State 2. Likewise, 166 ICU patients are in Bagmati State, six in Gandaki, 53 in Lumbini, 18 in Karnali and four in Sudurpaschim State, informed Dr. Gautam.
Of the active cases, 70 patients are receiving treatment with ventilator support, of them, 56 are in Bagmati State, which also has the highest number of ICU patients at 166.
Meanwhile, 2,174 COVID-19 patients have recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. With this, Nepal has now registered 80,954 cases of recoveries and the recovery rate stands at 68.6per cent.
Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley continues to witness a large number of cases on a daily basis. On Wednesday, 1403 new cases were reported in the three districts of the Kathmandu Valley. Of them, 996 cases were detected in Kathmandu district, followed by 305 in Lalitpur and 102 in Bhaktapur district, informed Dr.Gautam.
Meanwhile, 12 more COVID-19 related fatalities were confirmed in the last 24 hours. With this, Nepal's COVID-19 death toll has reached 675.