Kathmandu, May 29 (IANS): Eight Covid-19 patients died in Nepal's western city of Pokhara due to oxygen shortage, a hospital official said on Friday.

The patients lost their lives due to a lack of timely oxygen supply and the severity of their conditions, said Bhim Prasad Poudel, senior medical recorder at the Western Regional Hospital in Pokhara.

"The oxygen plant faced some problems in operation which delayed the supply of oxygen to us in time," Poudel said, adding that the shortage of oxygen was not the only reason as the condition of most dead patients was already critical.

The patients died over the period from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, the hospital said in a press statement, adding the majority of the patients had existing health issues like diabetes, liver problems, paralysis and kidney-related problems and they were treated with high oxygen flow, the Xinhua news agency reported.

As one of the largest cities and a tourist attraction in Nepal, Pokhara has emerged as a hotspot since a second wave of the pandemic hit the Himalayan country in early April.

On Friday, a total of 189 new infections were confirmed in the Kaski district where Pokhara lies.

At the Western Regional Hospital, almost all the beds allocated for Covid-19 patients have been occupied, and the hospital is getting around 250 oxygen cylinders per day as against a daily demand of 350.

It is difficult for them to manage the oxygen supply for all the hospitals in the city amid rising coronavirus cases as there are only two oxygen plants in Pokhara, said Poudel.

Over the past weeks, some countries have sent oxygen cylinders and concentrators and other medical equipment to help Nepal fight the Covid-19 epidemic.

Nepal registered a national tally of 549,111 coronavirus cases as of Friday, with 6,855 reported in the last 24 hours, while the death toll nationwide rose to 7,047 with 96 new fatalities recorded lately.