PETALING JAYA, May 3 — A Mumbai teacher in India has been lauded a hero for ferrying 26 Covid-19 patients to health centres in his auto-rickshaw for free.

Dattatraya Sawant, a teacher by profession, drives an auto-rickshaw to fetch patients to and from hospital for free while wearing his full personal protective equipment.

He also sanitises his vehicle frequently.

He told ANI that because of the increasing number of Covid-19 patients, for many who are poor, private ambulances are not an option for them.

"And often public vehicles do not provide services to Covid patients. In such cases, my free service will be available to them.

"I usually drop off the patients to care centres and hospitals for free, and also bring back discharged patients to their respective homes,” he said.

Dattatraya, who teaches English at Dnyansagar Vidya Mandir School said that he will continue the service for as long as the Covid-19 wave persists.

The teacher has received praises online with one Twitter user asking whether he could get the teacher’s number so that he could donate funds to him.

Others meanwhile were disappointed that Maharashtra’s chief minister did not do anything about the increasing Covid-19 numbers in the state.

India’s healthcare system has been hit hard by the Covid-19 surge with its health ministry website reporting that 218,959 people have died from Covid-19 pandemic while there are 3,413,642 active cases.