By the end of June (2020), the World health Organisation (WHO) had issued a warning that hospitals were facing a shortage of oxygen concentrators in the face of a Covid-19 pandemic that continued to unfold in different regions around the world.
When Europe and North America were largely the epicentre for the pandemic in the month of March and April, the talk was understandably of the challenges being faced in bulk liquid supply of medical oxygen to hospitals and makeshift field hospitals. The gases industry has risen to the challenge of being on the frontline with remarkable agility and speed, the tales of which we have largely regaled in recent editions of gasworld magazine as well as online throughout the crisis, but there were still perceived gaps in the supply chain – such was the level of crisis that healthcare systems were facing.
That had shone the spotlight on onsite oxygen production, via generators and concentrators, as a third means of oxygen supply in addition to traditional means of delivery via bulk liquid and packaged gases (cylinder supply).
That spotlight arguably shone even brighter with news of a possible new Oxygen 98 monograph in Europe and again by the end of June when, with roughly one million new cases of Covid-19 being reported around the globe every week, the WHO issued its warning that hospitals are facing a shortage of oxygen concentrators.
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