By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Sept. 12: The Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Nepal and the Nepal office of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) have jointly handed over 800 oxygen concentrators to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP).
On Friday, the EU’s Humanitarian Aid Operations provided 600 concentrators to the ministry through UNICEF while UNICEF itself also donated 200 concentrators with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The concentrators were handed over amidst a programme at the ministry.
Speaking on the occasion, country representative of UNICEF Nepal Elke Wisch shared that the concentrators would be distributed to health institutions across Nepal to build their capacity to respond to COVID-19. Chargé d'affaires at the EU Delegation Stephane Maicon hoped that equipment would be useful for rural health institutions, not only in treating COVID-19 patients, but in responding to other medical emergencies as well.
Maicon informed that the EU was also funding the World Health Organisation (WHO) to train 400 health staff across the country to use and maintain these sophisticated machines.
Rita Bhandari, chief of the Health Services Division of MoHP, thanked the EU, UNICEF and WHO for their support and hoped for continued assistance in the coming days as well.