WHO Warns About Oxygen Shortage as Cases Reach 10 Million

World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Wednesday warned about the shortage of oxygen concentrators for COVID-19 patients.

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“We expect to reach a total of 10 million cases within the next week. This is a sober reminder that even as we continue research into vaccines and therapeutics, we have an urgent responsibility to do everything we can with the tools we have now to suppress transmission and save lives,” Ghebreyesus said.

As the WHO statistic revealed, the COVID-19 active cases remain in isolation and care units for a mandatory two week period and exceed recovered patient’s tally. 

This situation has led to a supply shortage, especially for developing countries that do not have an accurate sanitary system and resources addressing. 

“Patients with severe and critical COVID-19 cannot get enough oxygen into their blood by breathing normally. They need higher concentrations of oxygen and support to get it into their lungs,” Dr.  Ghebreyesus stated.

According to WHO, small private companies own 80 percent of oxygen cylinders production. Worldwide oxygen demand is 620,000 cubic meters per day, about 88,000 large cylinders. 

Many countries do not have access to oxygen suppliers or the funds to acquire the required oxygen amount to cover the patient’s needs.

“To address this challenge, WHO is supporting several countries to buy equipment that will enable them to generate their concentrated oxygen in larger amounts. This is a sustainable solution for COVID-19 and beyond but requires technical expertise for maintenance,” WHO director stated.

As Ghebreyesus stated,  WHO has purchased 14,000 oxygen concentrators from manufacturers and plans to send them to 120 countries in the coming weeks. 

As for Thursday morning, 9,567,682 COVID-19 cases were reported worldwide, as well as 485,858 deaths, and 5,208,021 recoveries from the virus.