As Nepal records a surge of coronavirus cases across the country, humanitarian agency World Vision International (WVI) Nepal supported more than 1200 sets of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to government hospitals and administrations handling COVID-19 cases in Kathmandu, Udayapur, Mahottariand Rautahat districts on 4-6 October 2020.

300 sets of PPE were handed over to Bir Hospital, 150 to Patan Hospital and 150 to COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC) of BirendraSainik Hospital in Kathmandu. Likewise, 152, 60 and 60 sets handed over to the District Coordination Committees of Udayapur, Mahottari and Rautahat respectively. Supported with the aim to strengthen government health systems to combat COVID-19, each PPE set comprised 12 different protective apparatus including hand sanitizer. An additional 369 PPE will be supplied to the DCCs of Kailali, Doti, Achham and Sarlahi this week. Distributions are done in close coordination with the District Health Office and DCC to meet the increasing needs of PPE among health workers.

National Director of WVI Nepal Janes Ginting highlights, “As an active partner, we are supporting the Government of Nepal (GoN) to contain COVID-19 through different means since April this year. Government health systems are overwhelmed due to the rapid increase in coronavirus patients. This equipment will definitely help to meet the urgent needs of government health facilities and administrations as the situation continues to change.”

The PPE distribution follows the 90-day COVID-19 Emergency Response project that reached 105,000 children, 71,000 adults and 139,000 households across 15 districts (Bajhang, Achham, Doti, Kailali, Jumla, Lamjung, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, Sindhuli, Udayapur, Rautahat, Mahottari, Sarlahi, Sunsari and Morang). Back in April 2020, when coronavirus cases started increasing in Nepal, World Vision had supported 1,000 PPE including 130 Infrared Thermometers to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) considering the immediate need of the government to prevent the spread of COVID-19.