Africa Races to Fill Oxygen Shortage

ADF STAFF

In the fight to save lives of those affected by COVID-19, every breath is precious. Now African countries are in a race to increase oxygen supply so hospitals can treat the sickest patients.

The World Health Organization (WHO) established a new task force to come up with $90 million to address oxygen access in 20 low-income countries around the world. Fifteen of those countries are in Africa, including Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Nigeria and Senegal.

“We need huge supplies of oxygen to support the management of cases of COVID-19 across the continent. The health systems are overwhelmed,” said Dr. John Nkengasong, director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “We should join forces to improve access to oxygen across all member states because that is a key element that can be a game-changer in managing a patient with COVID-19.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of oxygen generating plants has grown from 68 to 119 in Africa, and the number of oxygen concentrators has more than doubled to 6,100, the WHO reported. Still, the supply is not keeping up with demand.

Malawi is one country facing a critical shortage of oxygen. Refilling oxygen cylinders costs about $110 in the country, and some patients require two to three cylinders per day. The faith-based charity Medic Malawi recently reported that the district hospital in Kasungu, which serves a population of about 1 million people, had only one cylinder of oxygen left.

“To hear stories of patients dying needlessly because oxygen was just not available to help them when they needed it most is a tragedy,” the Very Reverend Peter Howell-Jones of Medic Malawi told Church Times. “This simply should not be the case.”

South Africa has been plagued with the double problems of a virulent new COVID strain and a shortage of oxygen dating back to mid-2020. Doctors Without Borders reported last month that South African patients continue to die because of a lack of the basics: oxygen, water and fundamental patient monitoring and support.

Tanzania also had an urgent need for 3,650 oxygen cylinders to significantly increase access to oxygen therapy across the country, according to a ReliefWeb report in February.

Facing a shortage this year, Nigeria released $17 million to build 38 new oxygen plants. The government earmarked an additional $671,000 to repair oxygen facilities in five hospitals.

Health officials say that, overall, countries throughout the continent waited too long to start building new oxygen-generating facilities. It takes about three months to install a hospital plant and less time than that to convert industrial oxygen manufacturing systems, such as those used to make oxygen for welding, into a medical-grade network.

The World Health Organization said that even before the pandemic, sub-Saharan Africa’s oxygen plants were meeting less than half the demand, causing preventable deaths, especially from pneumonia.

Experts say issues such as tank maintenance, storage and supply chains must be addressed. Many are optimistic African nations will emerge from the pandemic better prepared to meet the need.

“The pandemic further exposed a fragile and inefficient health-care system and oxygen supply, and in response African governments have increased investment budgets for health care and have recruited more health-care workers,” Dr. Githinji Gitahi, group chief executive officer at Amref Health Africa, told The Lancet medical journal. “Africa shall have a better oxygen delivery system after COVID-19.”

Dr. Zaeem Haq, global medical director at Save the Children, urged countries to act quickly to address the shortfall.

“Hospitals and clinics are running out of oxygen as an unstoppable second wave of the pandemic strikes families with no chance of being vaccinated in time,” Haq told ReliefWeb. “Let’s be clear: Oxygen is the life-or-death medicine for COVID-19 treatment, and lives that could be saved are being lost.”