Viral picture of sweat-drenched doctor reveals India’s COVID-19 nightmare

An image of an exhausted, sweat-drenched doctor has captured India’s health crisis as the nation’s devastating COVID battle worsens.

An image of a sweat-drenched doctor in India has gone viral on social media, serving as a stark reminder of the intense strain health staff are under as the nation grapples with its devastating second COVID-19 wave.

New cases topped 400,000 in the last 24 hours – the highest ever daily count reported globally since the pandemic began – after more than a week of at least 300,000 new infections each day.

The death toll, meanwhile, has now surpassed 211,000, with 3523 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, according to federal health ministry data.

Hospitals and morgues are overflowing as desperate families scour the capital for oxygen and medicine, while a harrowing image of a doctor has reflected the frontline struggle.

Taking to Twitter, Dr Sohil Makwana shared a two images side-by-side – one of him dressed in PPE and the other of him in the clothes he was wearing underneath. Both outfits are soaked in sweat.

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Proud to serve the nation pic.twitter.com/xwyGSax39y

— Dr_sohil (@DrSohil) April 28, 2021

Writing that he was “proud to serve the nation”, in a second tweet Dr Makwana shared a message “on the behalf of all doctors and health workers”.

“We are really working hard away from our family,’ he wrote.

“Sometimes a foot away from a positive patient, sometimes an inch away from critically ill oldies … I request please go for a vaccination … it’s (the) only solution! Stay safe.”

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A woman reacts in discomfort after she arrived to receive free oxygen distributed as a service for coronavirus patients in need of oxygen amid scarcity in New Delhi. Picture: Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images

Patients breathe with the help of oxygen under a tent installed along the roadside in Ghaziabad. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

A health worker attends a patient inside a banquet hall temporarily converted into a COVID-19 ward in New Delhi. Picture: Prakash Singh/AFP

A family member wearing a protective gear performs the last rites of a victim who died of coronavirus at a crematorium in Ghazipur. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

The image comes after a photographer at the pandemic’s “Ground Zero” in Delhi revealed the response he gets from the grieving as the country’s death toll spirals out of control.

Asked by the BBC’s India correspondent, Soutik Biswas, whether people had accused of him of creating “death porn” by chronicling the unfolding devastation, the photographer said the opposite was true.

“Grieving relatives of the dead come up and tell me at crematoria: ‘Please shoot. You guys should show to India and the world what is going on’,” he said.

Of the mounting death toll and the disposal of bodies, the photojournalist told Biswas: “Everything is so overwhelming. I haven’t seen so much death and misery. The subjects of your pictures become part of you because they are seeking help. That’s a lot of raw emotion.”