January 10, 2025 07:44 pm (IST)

Make this your homepage

Foreign

Los Angeles wildfire toll climbs to 10, thousands of structures destroyed | 8 labourers still trapped in Assam's flooded mine even after 3 days of rescue ops | SC refuses to hear petitions seeking review of its same-sex marriage judgement, says there is 'no error' | 'They should wind up the alliance': Omar Abdullah on AAP-Congress fight over Delhi elections | Pune woman killed by her colleague in full public view for not paying back his money, no one intervenes | Los Angeles wildfire leaves 5 dead, forces 1 lakh including celebs to flee, Hollywood hills ablazed | PM Modi condoles death of six people in Tirupati stampede incident | Days after condemning Pak airstrikes, India in a first engages with Afghanistan's Taliban regime | 6 dead in stampede near Tirupati temple during token distribution to offer prayers | Prominent journalist-film producer Pritish Nandy dies of cardiac arrest at 73

Australia "exposed" to global medical supply shortage: Minister

India Blooms News Service | @indiablooms | Apr 08, 2020, at 12:13 pm

#Australia #MedicalSupply #Pandemic

Canberra/Xinhua/UNI: Australia's Finance Minister has warned that the nation's medical stockpile has been "somewhat exposed" to international shortages amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mathias Cormann on Wednesday called for the government to reconsider its approach to stockpiling medical supplies in order to be better prepare for future crises.

"Some of the personal protective equipment, when there is global competition and strong global demand for access to these products, then obviously we were somewhat exposed," said he.

"(Health Minister) Greg Hunt did an outstanding job with his team in securing masks and other protective equipment but it was a challenge."

Health authorities earlier in April urged regular Australians not to wear face masks, citing concerns about the short supply of masks in the health care system.

Cormann was speaking ahead of Parliament re-convening for a single day on Wednesday to vote on legislation for the government's 130 billion Australian dollar (79.7 billion U.S. dollar) wage subsidy scheme.

Addressing Parliament before debate on the legislation began, Prime Minister Scott Morrison praised Australians for successfully slowing the rate of COVID-19 infection but said that the nation still has a long way to go in fighting the virus.

"Through the actions we have taken to date, we have bought valuable time, to chart a way out over the next six months. But there are no guarantees, and it could well take far longer," he said. Enditem

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.