Amid rising cases of COVID-19, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is building two COVID care hospitals in Haldwani and Rishikesh in Uttarakhand.
DRDO officials told news agency ANI that the hospital in Haldwani will have 500 beds, with 375 oxygen beds and 125 ventilator beds, while the one in Rishikesh will have 400 oxygen beds and 100 ventilator beds.
Earlier, DRDO had set up a 750-bedded makeshift COVID hospital at Banaras Hindu University premises and has started construction of a 500-bed COVID-19 hospital in Budgam district to ramp up medical infrastructure.
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on Saturday has approved an anti-COVID oral drug, developed by DRDO, for emergency use as adjunct therapy in moderate to severe coronavirus patients.
The Defence Ministry on Saturday said that the clinical trials of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) showed that it helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.
The drug has been developed by Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a leading laboratory of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), in collaboration with Dr Reddy's Laboratories in Hyderabad.
A higher proportion of patients treated with 2-DG showed RT-PCR negative conversion in COVID patients. The drug will be of immense benefit to the people suffering from Covid-19 in the ongoing pandemic, the Defence Ministry said.
Uttarakhand reported 8,390 new COVID-19 cases and 118 deaths in the last 24 hours, said the state control room on Saturday. With this, the case tally reached 2,38,383. As many as 4,771 patients recovered from the disease in the said period. Meanwhile, the active number of COVID-19 cases in Uttarakhand stands at 71,174.
(With inputs from Agencies)
