NEW DELHI – A fire broke out in a hospital in western India early Friday, killing 13 COVID-19 patients, as an extreme surge in infections leaves the nation short of medical care and oxygen.
India reported more than 314,000 new infections Thursday, the world's worst daily sum of the pandemic. And the latest surge already has driven its fragile health systems to the breaking point with understaffed hospitals overflowing with patients and critically short of supplies.
The fire at a hospital in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai occurred two days after 24 COVID-19 patients on ventilators died due to an oxygen leak in a hospital in Nashik, another city in Maharashtra state.