Rajesh Tope said neighbouring Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are not willing to supply Maharashtra with liquid oxygen. (File photo)
PUNE: Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope has now proposed the use of oxygen concentrators to ease shortage of medical oxygen in state hospitals.
Oxygen concentrators draw in room air and pass it through filters that remove dust, bacteria and other particulates. They then deliver this supplementary oxygen to patients experiencing breathing trouble.
While liquid oxygen tanks will be installed at state hospitals with 50 to 100 beds, these machines generating purified oxygen from the air are being considered for procurement for small hospitals via District Planning and Development Funds (DPDC), Tope said on Tuesday.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state Covid task force, said people should stop panic-buying the drug. “The rush for the drug is unfounded. It has restrictions on use and should be given only during the first nine days. It s a drug that only reduces viral replication in the body. It does not have the potential to reduce mortality. No study of the drug, worldwide, has shown an ability to reduce mortality,” Dr Joshi said.
He added doctors may be prescribing the drug, which cuts hospital stay, to make more beds immediately available for more Covid patients.
A senior doctor, another member of the state Covid advisory group, said favipiravir is the only other antiviral being recommended besides remdesivir. However, favipiravir has better impact if administered during the first five to six days of Covid onset.
Updated Feb 26, 2021 | 10:21 IST
Police have booked the accused under IPC sections 379 (theft), 297 (wounding feelings of a person or insulting the religion or beliefs) and 511 (an offence punishable with imprisonment for life). Pyre ashes stolen in Maharashtra [Representative image] | Photo Credit: iStock Images
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Later, the villagers called the police and handed over the accused to them.
The accused were battling financial crisis, police inquiries revealed.
Aurangabad: In an unusual incident, four people, including two women, were caught stealing ashes from the pyre of a woman in Devgaon Khurd village of Maharashtra’s Osmanabad district, following which they were thrashed and handed over to the police by local residents.
Representative image
NAGPUR: The Maharashtra police have provided jobs to more than 180 family members of police personnel who died while on duty, including those in fight against coronavirus, DGP Hemant Nagrale said on Thursday.
Addressing a press conference here, Nagrale said appointment letters were issued this week to 183 family members of police personnel who died while on duty in different police ranges of the state.
Of these, 30 appointment letters were issued in Nagpur on Thursday, he said.
The appointments were made under a government scheme for employment on compassionate ground, said Nagrale, who is on a two-day visit to review the police department s functioning in Nagpur and a few of its neighbouring districts.