Amazon to airlift 100 ICU ventilator units from US to India

Photo for representational purpose. Picture Courtesy/iStock

E-commerce major Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has procured 100 ventilators and will import these to India, in its bid to help the country fight the devastating second wave of Covid-19.

Amazon has tied up with Medtronic, an American-Irish medical device company, to deliver the units to India in the next two weeks.

"Amazon has worked with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to ensure the ventilators are of acceptable technical specification and carried out its own compatibility checks to immediately fund 100 units of Medtronic's PB980 model and bring them into India for urgent use," the company shared in a blogpost.

The e-commerce giant is also working closely with the Health Ministry's appointed agencies to finalise the hospitals for end-to-end delivery, installation, maintenance and training of personnel who will use these machines.

"We hugely appreciate the quick response from the MoHWF to help identify the most compatible models, expediting the shipment import into India and for coordination with agencies of MoHFW to allocate these where they are needed most. We are doing more and are committed to support our country in the fight against Covid-19," said Amit Agarwal, Global SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, in the blog post.

The company had, meanwhile on Sunday, announced to donate 10,000 oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines to hospitals and public institutions to augment their capacity to help Covid-19 infected patients across multiple cities in India.

The first of these consignments was set to land in Mumbai on Sunday and a majority of the shipping is expected to be completed by April 30.

Additionally, Amazon also joined hands with ACT Grants, Temasek Foundation, Pune Platform for Covid-19 Response (PPCR) and other partners to urgently airlift over 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 BiPAP machines from Singapore.

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