Robots such as Mitra are being used to reduce risk of infection for medical staff. Standing just 5ft tall, Mitra navigates around the hospital wards, guided by facial recognition technology and with a chest-mounted tablet that allows patients and their loved ones to see each other. Developed in recent years by the Bengaluru startup Invento Robotics, Mitra costs around $13,600 (£10,000) and – due to the reduced risk of infection to doctors – has become hugely popular in Indian hospitals during the pandemic. Since making headlines at its debut in 2017 at an international summit, where it greeted Ivanka Trump and interacted with India's prime minister Narendra Modi, Mitra has increasingly been put to use in hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. "Mitra was originally meant for care homes, but was adapted during the pandemic to assist doctors and nurses by taking vital readings, and to help in consultations," says Balaji Viswanathan, chief executive of Invento Robotics, which now exports the robot to five countries including the US and Australia.

Standing just 5ft tall, Mitra navigates around the hospital wards, guided by facial recognition technology and with a chest-mounted tablet that allows patients and their loved ones to see each other. Developed in recent years by the Bengaluru startup Invento Robotics, Mitra costs around $13,600 (£10,000) and – due to the reduced risk of infection to doctors – has become hugely popular in Indian hospitals during the pandemic. Since making headlines at its debut in 2017 at an international summit, where it greeted Ivanka Trump and interacted with India's prime minister Narendra Modi, Mitra has increasingly been put to use in hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. "Mitra was originally meant for care homes, but was adapted during the pandemic to assist doctors and nurses by taking vital readings, and to help in consultations," says Balaji Viswanathan, chief executive of Invento Robotics, which now exports the robot to five countries including the US and Australia. India still only has about three robots for every 10,000 workers, but the domestic industry is growing rapidly, fuelled in no small part by the pandemic.