Worker prepares oxygen cylinders at a COVID-19 quarantine center in Aden. Photo: Reuters
Mon - 10 May 2021 - 08:10 PM ،،،
More must be done to ensure people with COVID-19 worldwide have access to oxygen, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today.
“Oxygen is the single most important medicine for severe and critical COVID-19 patients, yet oxygen supply is often insufficient because infrastructure has been neglected in lower- and middle-income countries for decades,” said Dr. Marc Biot, MSF director of operations.
“Before the pandemic, we saw patients suffering from pneumonia, malaria, sepsis, and a variety of other conditions—as well as far too many premature babies—die due to a lack of medical oxygen. COVID-19 has brought this issue into sharp new focus. Unstable oxygen supplies kill.” Dr. Biot added.
“People are being failed twice,” said Dr. Biot. “Not only are they at the end of the inequitable global vaccine line, but they also cannot receive care when they fall ill because they do not have access to the oxygen they need.”
Long-term solutions are needed to secure supply, but, in the meantime, medical oxygen must be urgently made available to health facilities battling COVID-19, particularly when the virus surges. Beyond the current catastrophe in India, the city of Aden, Yemen, is another prime example of the global oxygen shortage.
Beyond COVID-19, access to oxygen therapy is critical for people with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses, sepsis, severe malaria, epilepsy, trauma, obstetric and neonatal conditions, and those in need of surgical care and anesthesia.