KATHMANDU — Five people suffocated in a Nepal hospital after oxygen ran out this week, just the latest victims of a vicious Covid surge that risks devastating the impoverished country and its ill-equipped healthcare system.
Daily new cases have risen 60-fold since April 1 and nearly a thousand people have died in the past 10 days, according to official figures which, as in neighboring India, are seen as under-reporting the scale of the virus.
The mountainous country of almost 30 million is now seeing severe cases flood hospitals as oxygen cylinders empty faster than they can be refilled and almost half of those tested return positive.
In the capital Kathmandu, several hosp…
Keep on reading: Nepal reels from COVID-19 ‘crisis situation’ as infections soar