Nepal, a Himalayan nation of about 30 million people, is one of the least developed countries in the world.
Landlocked and sandwiched between China in the north and India in the south, it depends on India for most of its supplies, especially medical equipment and liquid oxygen.
With India stopping exports of oxygen due to the worsening situation there, Kathmandu is now struggling to find alternative supplies.
Like many other Asian nations, Nepal somehow managed to escape the first wave without any serious damage.
But the second wave has been devastating. Daily infections hovered at around 150 at the beginning of April but in a month the figure has passed 9,000. More than 4,000 people have died.
Nepali health officials say the current daily positivity rate is nearly 50%, meaning that one in two people are testing positive for Covid.
An estimated 80,000 people are in home isolation, and officials are warning of many more deaths in the coming weeks.
“We rank Nepal 9th among the 10 top countries in terms of daily increase in Covid-19 cases. Of all those countries, Nepal has the smallest population but it has the highest case positivity rate,” Sara Beysolow Nyanti,
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