Myanmar COVID-19 outbreak hits health system shattered after coup

Breathless, fevered and without the extra oxygen that could help keep them alive, the new coronavirus patients at a hospital near Myanmar’s border with India highlight the threat to a health system near collapse since February’s coup.

To help her tend the seven COVID-19 patients at Cikha hospital, day and night, chief nurse Lun Za En has a lab technician and a pharmacist’s assistant.

Mostly, they offer kind words and paracetamol.

“We don’t have enough oxygen, enough medical equipment, enough electricity, enough doctors or enough ambulances,” Lun Za En, 45, told Reuters from the town of just…