HOUSTON (May 11, 2021)—Sewa International has spent more than $6 million in the last 15 days to procure lifesaving equipment such as oxygen concentrators, ventilators, BiPAP and CPAP machines as part of its “Help India Defeat COVID-19” campaign.
Sewa shipped 260 Inogen oxygen concentrators, 1,000 oximeters and nine BiPAP machines from New York on Friday, May 7. UPS Foundation partnered with Sewa International to ship them to New Delhi by air for free. MedShare, a nonprofit that sources and delivers surplus medical supplies and equipment to communities in need, donated the concentrators.
So far, Sewa has spent over $3.5 million to order 7,482 oxygen concentrators and procured 5,118 of them from various vendors in and outside the United States. Sewa has shipped 2,844 concentrators and 2,084 of them have reached India. They are being distributed to government hospitals and COVID-19 care centers and hospitals run by Sewa's partner organizations.
Sewa is planning to ship over 6,000 additional oxygen concentrators to India in the next few weeks. "Shipping large quantities of medical equipment to another country from the US has a lot of logistical challenges. We are optimizing our shipments so that they reach India fast," Sewa's President Arun Kankani said.
"Sewa has established a control room in Atlanta, and it is managed by 10 Sewa volunteers. They are constantly researching the medical equipment, their vendors, capacity, price and other details to purchase them or find donors who can donate them to us," he added.
"We got a phenomenal response from all Americans to our “Help India Defeat COVID-19” campaign. Many corporates, hospitals and community organizations are calling us to offer help. Sewa volunteers are working hard to connect the dots. A big thank you from Sewa to you all," Kankani said.
"Oxygen concentrators distributed by Sewa have reached 19 states in India so far and they are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh," Sewa's Vice President for Disaster Recovery Swadesh Katoch said.
"It's very important to save every life and I am confident that the equipment we have sent to India will ease the shortage of emergency equipment and help COVID-19 patients recover and enable families to protect their loved ones," Katoch said.
Sewa started its campaign to aid India on April 23, amid an alarming rise in the daily number of new COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Sewa has raised $16 million for this initiative so far including $7.8 million from over 105,000 donors from its Facebook campaign and $4.3 million through its website sewausa.org.
Sewa International is a 501 (c)(3) Hindu faith-based charitable nonprofit that works in the areas of disaster recovery, education, and development. Sewa has 43 Chapters across the United States and serves people regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability or national origin.
