From March, Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd. (KMSCL) has spent over ₹352 crore on COVID-19-related purchase of medical equipment ranging from personal protective gear to ventilators.
The amount is a little more than half the ₹604.18 crore sanctioned to the company which serves as a procurement agency for the State’s public healthcare institutions. Of the sanctioned amount, the Centre had provided ₹247 crore, said KMSCL General Manager Dileepkumar S.R. While the State government had provided ₹75 crore so far, it had sanctioned another ₹275 crore, he added.
Even with an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, the State currently has enough stock of RNA extraction kits, PPE kits and masks to last for over a month, and the procurement process to meet the additional requirement is under way, according to KMSCL Managing Director Ajayakumar A.R.
The target was to keep stock available for 45 days at least, calculated based on average daily usage of the protective equipment or laboratory reagents, said KMSCL General Manager Dileepkumar S.R. Since there were more cases being reported daily, additional stocks were in transit and were set to arrive in a staggered manner soon, he added.
An average of over 6,000 PPE kits were used daily, up from about 2,000 per day in March, he said. Ninety per cent of the stock of PPE kits is procured from four manufacturers based in Kerala. The rest is from companies in Rajasthan, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. A stock of over 3.57 lakh PPE kits is available. The PCR reagents and RNA extraction kits were procured from wholesale vendors who imported it, he said.
