BMD

No one will be safe until everyone is safe’. Yes, this mantra arrests the mood and fate of people hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. This calls for equitable distribution of vaccines to deal with the global public health emergency.
But it is easier said than done as there has been a growing tendency among the rich nations to hoard vaccines for them. Even when these nations represent only about 14 per cent of the globe’s total population, they have already brought more doses of vaccines than they actually need.
The vaccines manufactured by different companies from around the world have proven to be quite effective in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its emergence in late December 2019, the contagion has so far infected more than 152,820,000 people, with over 3,206,640 deaths worldwide.
What is more worrisome is that the much deadlier new variants of the virus has panicked the people living in several South Asian nations, including India, Nepal and Pakistan, once again. With the outbreak of a second wave of the virus disease, these countries have stepped up various measures, including partial lockdowns, to combat it.
With India now reporting hundreds of thousands of fresh COVID-19 cases and thousands of deaths daily, the country has now become the world's second worst-hit nation after the USA. Despite being the globe's largest manufacturer of vaccines, India has now failed to speed up its inoculation drive. Being home to about 1.4 billion population, the country has been reeling from a very difficult situation as its healthcare system is now on the verge of collapse.
In such a scenario, some developed nations like the USA, the UK and Germany have extended their helping hand to the world's second most populous nation by providing drugs, oxygen concentrators, ventilators and other essential supplies. This humanitarian support must have been helpful for India to fight the pandemic. The country is now gearing for rolling out vaccines in a more extensive manner.
As Nepal and India share a long open border, it is not easy for the two nations to check the cross-border mobility. With the worsening coronavirus situation in India, several Nepal-India border points have begun seeing an influx of Nepalis as well as Indians daily. Many of them are believed to have been infected with the virus disease. So, they may contribute to spreading the contagion rapidly in the adjoining Terai region.
Marred by political instability and poor healthcare system, Nepal has also witnessed a resurgence of the pandemic over the past few weeks. Thousands of COVID-19 infections and dozens of fatalities are being recorded across the country on a daily basis. The contagion seems to be transmitting like a wildfire in the Kathmandu Valley and many other districts. With a daily double-digit death toll, Banke district has already become a coronavirus hotspot. Scores of health workers have also been infected with the virus disease there.
Most of hospitals in the pandemic-affected cities are currently facing an acute shortage of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds, oxygen and ventilators. Another shocking aspect is that the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) has lately said that the nation’s healthcare system was unable to cope with the new situation. It further said that the hospital beds could not be made available to patients.
This has disheartened people, especially COVID-19 patients. This is something that indicates that the government has failed to develop necessary health infrastructure even after the outbreak of the killer virus disease. As it is very serious situation, all the political parties should collaborate with the government to fight the pandemic.