GOVERNMENT MINISTERS HAVE announced they will be providing assistance to Nepal in response to the country’s worsening Covid-19 outbreak.

Working together to provide this assistance include Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, along with a number of Government Departments, the HSE and state agencies.

Ireland is set to donate 72 oxygen concentrators, 42 ventilators, 12 bipap machines, 400 oximeters, 50 respiratory monitors, 50 defibrillators, 100 thermometers, 1,126 oxygen and air regulators, 99,750 protective coveralls, 201,600 face shields and 1,008,000 surgical masks.

This equipment will leave Shannon airport today and was donated by a number of health care organisations such as the HSE, Irish Red Cross and Bartra Healthcare and also Nepal Ireland Society.

This support from Ireland is part of an EU Member States coordination to provide a collaborative response to Nepal’s request for assistance.

Donnelly said he is pleased that Ireland is in a position to provide this aid.

“This equipment will support frontline healthcare workers in Nepal to deliver care to patients who need it,” he said. “I am grateful to all those who have worked together to make this life-saving donation happen.”

Coveney said the Irish Aid programme in his department of Foreign Affairs will support the delivery cost of the donation. “This is part of Irish Aid’s €100 million contribution to the global public health response to the pandemic this year,” he said.

One year ago, plans for a targeted EU response were laid out to support partner countries in tackling the virus. The support comes from combining resources of the EU, its member states and European financial institutions, known as Team Europe.

Janez Lenarčič, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management said that “by 1 January 2021, Team Europe had already supported partner countries around the world with more than €26 billion, 65% of the overall response package that now stands at over €40 billion and exceeding the original €20 billion pledged.”  

Nepal has recently been hit by infections spilling over from neighbouring India.

So far, there have been 614,216 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Nepal, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Over 2,861,000 vaccine doses have been administered among a population of over 29 million.