India marshals more resources to stop virus, but gaps remain

NEW DELHI (AP) — India is adding more resources to tackle the inevitable rise in its number of coronavirus cases by announcing that private hospitals may be requisitioned to help treat virus patients, and turning railway cars and a motor racing circuit into makeshift quarantine facilities.

The steps were taken after a nationwide lockdown announced last week by Prime Minister Narendra Modi led to a mass exodus of migrant workers from cities towards their villages — often on foot and without food and water — raising fears that the virus may have reached to the countryside, where health care facilities are limited.

Indian health officials have confirmed more than 1,000 cases of the coronavirus, including 29 deaths.

Experts have said that local spreading is inevitable in a country where tens of millions of people live in dense urban areas with irregular access to clean water, and that the exodus of the migrants will burden the already strained health system.

As India's under-resourced health care system prepares to confront a wave of coronavirus cases, some state governments have asked liquor factories and breweries to ramp up the production of liquid sanitizer after the initial supply failed to match the demand. Designers, nonprofit groups and prisoners in various jails have stepped up to help overcome shortages of masks and other personal protective equipment.

India has less than one allopathic doctor and only 1.7 nurses per thousand people, the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. The dominant share of India’s doctors and beds are also in the private health care sector, which the country's poor often cannot afford.

“India’s big city hospitals are well equipped to deal with the surge in virus cases,” said public health expert T. Sundararaman. “But the same can’t be said about...