Medical oxygen has been an essential treatment for more than 150 years. However, an astonishing five billion people still lack access to it. The severity of this situation was underlined by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the need for medical oxygen increased significantly.
A new article in The Lancet Global Health digs deeper into the crisis and calls for more funding to address the challenge. The article highlights the strong case for investing in oxygen, noting it is as cost-effective as routine childhood immunisation, can help governments make progress on eight Sustainable Development Goals and reduce deaths in future pandemics.
Beyond the numbers, the article includes the voices of medical professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), who detail the devastating impact of the oxygen shortages: “Prior to COVID, only one public hospital had a functioning oxygen plant in the whole country,” reports a doctor in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, a doctor in Ethiopia says: “I don’t want any future generations of doctors having to decide like God who lives and who dies, because that is what we had to do when there wasn’t enough oxygen.”
In response to the Lancet paper, Kaodili Udeh, MedAccess’ Head of Regional Manufacturing, joined partners in submitting a commentary on the role of industry in increasing access to medical oxygen. The piece highlights six areas for action, including establishing an access-to-oxygen strategy, expanding local manufacturing capacity in LMICs, and developing formal partnerships between industry and governments.
The article also explores progress to date. Manufacturers, for example, have taken part in calls for expressions of interest and procurement tenders aimed at increasing the availability of medical oxygen in LMICs. New initiatives have also been launched, including the East African Program on Oxygen Access (EAPOA), a partnership including three leading oxygen producers in Kenya and Tanzania.
Expanding these efforts now is vital to ensuring more equitable oxygen access across the world in the future.
