Oxygen is an essential medicine used to care for patients

Oxygen is an essential medicine used to care for patients at all levels of the healthcare system, including in surgery, trauma, heart failure, asthma, pneumonia and maternal and child care.

Pneumonia alone accounts for 800 000 deaths per year. It is estimated that 20–40% of these deaths could be prevented with the availability of oxygen therapy.

An infant born premature receives oxygen at De Martino Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. © WHO / Fouzia Bano

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated global demand for oxygen and made the delivery of oxygen supplies more urgent than ever. The need for oxygen has increased to 1.1 million cylinders in low to middle-income countries alone.

Early in the pandemic, WHO’s first phase approach was to scale up oxygen supply in the most vulnerable countries by procuring and distributing oxygen concentrators and pulse oximeters.