NY hospital donates ventilators to India

NEW YORK: As hospitals in India struggle to keep pace with a surge of COVID-19 infections, New York's Mount Sinai hospital is donating ventilators to help save lives.

On Monday, the hospital made a shipment of 25 ventilators and 100 sleep apnea machines that will be distributed to five hospitals around India in the cities of Bengaluru, Delhi, Kanpur, Kolkata and Mumbai.

"I think the pandemic is at its peak. We dealt with that in New York last year and a similar situation they are going through at this point," said Dr. Ash Tewari, who organized the effort to donate the equipment. He says the ventilators are essential items for severe COVID patients, and the sleep apnea machines can also help improve breathing when a ventilator is not available.

Dr. Tewari, a native of Kanpur, India, said he was motivated by the loss of family and friends to COVID, and by his own experience battling a severe case of the virus last year.

India reported 368,147 new coronavirus cases and 3,417 deaths on Monday — numbers that experts believe are vast undercounts because of a widespread lack of testing and incomplete reporting.

The health ministry says it has confirmed 19.9 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, behind only the U.S., which has counted more than 32.4 million. It says more than 218,000 people have died.