Newly Built, Hospital Ward for Covid-19 Patients Burns, 10 People Died
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| Fire illustration. (Shutterstock) |
PERMATA POSTS KInd - A fire engulfed a newly built hospital ward for coronavirus patients in western India Saturday (6/11), killing at least 10 patients.
Officials said more than 20 patients were in the ICU of the hospital in the city of Ahmednagar when the fire broke out.
It was the latest in a series of fires in COVID-19 wards in India's hospitals since the underfunded healthcare system was overwhelmed by the coronavirus surge between April and May.
Maharashtra state chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, ordered an investigation into Saturday's fire and safety conditions at the hospital.
16 COVID-19 patients and two nurses died in May in a fire at a hospital in the Indian state of Gujarat. In April, about 35 patients died in separate fires at two facilities in Mumbai.
As of Saturday (6/11) afternoon, the Johns Hopkins University Corona Virus Data Center reported nearly 249.4 million global COVID-19 cases and more than five million deaths. JHU reports more than 7.2 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered worldwide.