Pandemic pushes up demand for CT scanners; firms gear up to meet surge

For Siemens, around 50 per cent are first-time buyers, 30 per cent are adding machines for Covid-19

The pandemic has pushed up the demand for computerised tomography scan (CT scan) machines, which are now being increasingly used as an early tool to differentiate the Covid-19 pneumonia from others.

Almost every hospitalised Covid patient needs a CT scan, which uses computers and rotating X-ray machines to create cross-sectional images of the body, at some point to monitor the progression of the disease.

Siemens Healthineers, one of the largest manufacturers of made-in-India CT scanners, has sold 80-100 such machines in the last 45 days. The medical technology firm typically sells 250 machines in a year.

Explaining the trend, Vivek