Before the pandemic, hospitals invested less in ventilators as they are expensive and the devices were available mainly in some hospitals in bigger Indian cities, Bhowmick added.

But companies are now pushing to make affordable devices.

Dynamatic Technologies is making a $33 ventilator that does not need electricity to function, while AgVa is aiming to make 10,000 ventilators by mid-May, priced under $2,000.

AgVa is collaborating with automaker Maruti Suzuki and state-run Bharat Electronics to make parts.

The Bank said governments would do well to consider short, medium and long-term interventions to support stranded migrants, remittance infrastructure, loss of subsistence income for families back home, and access to health, housing, education, and jobs for migrant workers in host/transit countries and their families back home.

The massive government stimulus package provides an extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits and expanded coverage to self-employed and other “gig” workers, presenting additional challenges for the states. Providing the additional aid has been wrought with technical issues and increased the number of applications flowing in.

“Particularly for women and girls in countries where limited social protection measures are in place, economic hardships caused by the crisis will have spill-over effects as families consider the financial and opportunity costs of educating their daughters. While many girls will continue with their education once the school gates reopen, others will never return to school,” Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education said.

“Hydroxychloroquine use with or without co-administration of azithromycin did not improve mortality or reduce the need for mechanical ventilation in hospitalised patients,” the scientists wrote in the study.

On the contrary, they said, hydroxychloroquine use alone was associated with an increased risk of death compared to standard care alone.

Business leaders in the hospitality and restaurant sectors were the most vulnerable with 41% of executives saying their firms were at risk of not surviving, while 30 per cent in aviation and 19 per cent in wholesale and retail sales feared they may go under, the survey found.

Almost two-thirds of business leaders forecast a negative impact on earnings to continue for more than a year, while a quarter expect their workforce to be down by more than 20 per cent a year from now.