Indian Railways has taken up a new task of converting its train carriages into isolation wards to ease the pressure on the healthcare system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indian Railways said in a press statement that it has put all its might and resources behind national efforts. 

"Railways will offer clean, sanitized & hygienic surroundings for the patients to comfortably recover," tweeted railways minister Piyush Goyal, who did not specify how many people could be cared for in each carriage.

In India, the number of positive cases is 4,067 and more than 100 people have lost their lives as of Monday. The country of 1.3 billion is in a 21-day lockdown.

Despite that the number of cases are rising now, the fear is that by the end of the month more cases will come to light as the country now is testing more people.

The health ministry in a press conference said, "We have ordered 500,000 testing kits of which 250,000 will be arriving on April 8."     

If the number continues to rise, there will be a shortage of facility to isolate the infected patients. To deal with this, Railways has been pressed into service.

In a short span of time, they have converted 2500 carriages into isolation wards. On an average they are converting 375 non-air-conditioned carriages into quarantine carriages. All 16 zones of Railways have been asked to identify the carriages which can be converted.

"We are trying to convert coaches into isolation wards as they will be needed in fight against coronavirus. We have almost completed one coach and we have started work on the second coach," said Dipen Barman, who works as an engineer at Indian Railways.

So far 40,000 isolation beds have been put in use in these hospitals on wheels.

Since the prototype was approved by medical department, the conversion action has been implemented quickly by Zonal Railways. The work is being carried out at 133 locations in the country. These carriages are equipped as per medical advisories issued. Efforts are being done to ensure best possible stay and medical supervision as per the needs and norms.

It may be noted that these isolation carriages are being prepared only as a contingency and to supplement the efforts of the Ministry of Health in fighting the COVID-19.

Barman explained, "We are not sure if the hospital facilities will be enough so we have now converted these carriages into isolation wards and in one carriage we can keep nine patients."

These trains will be sent to those places which will face a crunch of hospital beds as and when there is spike in positive cases.