At least 18 COVID-19 patients killed in India hospital fire

A fire in a COVID-19 hospital ward in western India killed 18 patients early Saturday, as the country grappling with the worst outbreak yet steps up a vaccination drive for all its adults even though some states say they don't have enough jabs.

Thirty-one other patients at the Welfare Hospital in Bharuch, a town in Gujarat state, were rescued by hospital workers and firefighters and their condition was stable, said police officer B.M Parmar.

The blaze and smoke killed 18 patients before they could be taken out by rescuers, Parmar said.

The fire broke out in a COVID-19 ward on the ground floor and was extinguished within an hour, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted fire officer Shailesh Sansiya as saying. The cause of the fire is being investigated.

On April 23, a fire in an intensive care unit killed 13 COVID-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Faced with an unprecedented surge in cases that has filled hospitals and crematoriums, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government described the pandemic as a "once-in-a-century crisis."

Modi held a Cabinet meeting Friday that discussed steps to save the country's crumbling health system by adding additional hospital beds, resolving issues in production, storage and transport of oxygen and tackling the shortage of essential medicines.

Vaccine eligibility expanded

The government on Saturday shifted its faltering vaccination campaign into high gear by saying all adults 18 and over were getting their shots.

Since January, nearly 10 per cent of Indians have received one dose, but only around 1.5 per cent have received both, though India is one of the world's biggest producers of vaccines.

Some states already said they do not have enough doses for everyone. Even the ongoing effort to inoculate people above 45 is stuttering.

The state of Maharashtra has said it won't be able to start on Saturday. Satyender Jain, the health minister in the capital, New Delhi, said earlier this week that the city doesn't have enough doses to vaccinate people between 18 and 44.

India on Friday reported another global daily record of 386,452 new cases, pushing the overall toll to more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry also reported 3,498 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.