“It was just fantastic,” said Mr. Manem, an Atlanta resident who was in India to visit his family. “Each doctor gave me at least 15-20 minutes of their time.” Her mother has since made a full recovery.

The role of telemedicine has grown in many countries since the start of the pandemic. Often, this has allowed people to see doctors without leaving their homes during shutdowns and to avoid spreading or contracting the virus. In much of the developing world with weaker health systems, and particularly in India during the recent wave, telemedicine has played a much more vital role.

Telemedicine has almost become a substitute for in-person care in many cases in India, said Vikram Kapur, a partner at Bain & Co. who runs its healthcare practice in Asia-Pacific. “There are just not enough doctors and so many people in need of care,” he said.

Although there is no national data on telemedicine in India, he estimated that there were four to five times more virtual consultations during the recent wave in India than before the pandemic and that they were still occurring two to three times before Covid-19 levels, even though new reported cases have recently fallen to less than 50,000 per day.

The pandemic has fueled the expansion of telemedicine. The global virtual healthcare market is expected to reach nearly $ 300 billion by 2028, up from $ 56 billion last year, according to research and consulting firm Grand View Research.

There was a “massive early acceleration when everyone was locked in everywhere and you just couldn’t see a doctor,” Kapur said.

Many countries are now integrating telemedicine into their plans to tackle future waves of Covid-19 or as an integral part of their health systems. Belgium is putting in place a regulatory framework for telemedicine for the first time, while others like the United States and China have relaxed, at least temporarily, restrictions on insurance payments for virtual tours.

In India, several states are incorporating telemedicine into their preparations for future waves. Many of India’s largest private hospital chains have rolled out Covid-19 care packages that include online consultations with a doctor and amenities like a thermometer and pulse oximeter.

“The pandemic has definitely made telehealth more acceptable around the world,” said Sreeni Gangasani, an Atlanta-based cardiologist who recently co-founded eGlobalDoctors, a company that connects patients and doctors around the world.

When coronavirus cases exploded in India in the spring, eGlobalDoctors was months away from launch. The company decided to open its website early to people in India after seeing hospitals across the country overwhelmed.

Since early May, more than 250 physicians in the US, UK and other remote countries have volunteered to host over 2,500 virtual counseling sessions on eGlobalDoctors. Many physicians are members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Descent or the Sewa International nonprofit organization, both of which support the telemedicine effort.

Doctors abroad are not allowed to prescribe drugs to Indian patients. Instead, many see their primary duty as relieving the overworked doctors in India by counseling patients.

Much of the work reassures frightened patients that their symptoms are normal and not life threatening, Dr Gangasani said. So many Indians know someone who recently died from Covid-19 that some suffer from extreme anxiety after testing positive. “The minute you get the diagnosis they’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is bad,’ he said.

For Indians living in rural areas without access to the internet or smartphones, doctors will also do telephone consultations, sometimes patched by a team of volunteers in India, Dr Gangasani said. A few doctors bought separate SIM cards to handle calls from villagers.

Overseas doctors have also been called in to advise on the protocol for setting up Covid-19 emergency clinics or managing mass hospitalizations. Some train frontline workers on care or see doctors treating patients in rural areas with limited medical supplies.

“If you tell a doctor to do something, he will take care of 10 patients,” said Ashish Dhawan, a London-based doctor who volunteers with the British International Doctors Association, an advocacy group for international doctors. UK.

A friend asked Dr Dhawan to consult on converting an outpatient clinic in a Sikh temple to a Covid-19 ward in the city of Pune, western India. A team of volunteers including accountants and architects lined up to help. Dr Dhawan will help train staff and interview candidates via video. The service will be used to provide space for families who do not have enough at home to isolate themselves to prevent the spread of infection.

Volunteers from the British Association of Physicians of Indian Descent, which has more than 65,000 members, connect daily from the UK to advise young doctors in India. There are many questions surrounding how doctors treated Covid-19 patients during outbreaks in the UK, said Nishank KP, a first-year resident at Kingsway Hospitals in Nagpur, Maharashtra, who has worked with British doctors.

Bijal Mehta, a Mumbai-based doctor who volunteers at Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital in a rural part of Gujarat state, said it was difficult to hire doctors from Mumbai because they don’t speak the same dialect that the villagers. Dr Mehta therefore turned to British doctors to support the efforts of hospital staff. Some help train new nurses, while others read x-rays and diabetes reports to expedite care.

“I’m going to ask them to continue this relationship even when Covid is gone because it’s been so good,” Dr Mehta said.

Write to Shan Li at [email protected] and Suryatapa Bhattacharya at [email protected]