Promising practices and lessons learnt in the South-East Asia Region in accessing medical oxygen during the COVID-19 pandemic

Overview

Over the past two years, COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented global crisis, led to loss of millions of lives, distressed public health systems and disrupted economic and social activities. The pandemic has challenged local, regional, national and global capacities to prepare and respond. The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO SEARO) that serves 11 Member States – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPR Korea), India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste – studied how Member States responded to the spike in demand for medical-grade oxygen caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of 11 August 2022, this group of nations accounted for nearly 60 million of the 584 million confirmed cumulative cases globally. The demand for hospital beds, human resources, drugs, testing kits and life-saving oxygen had risen to unprecedented levels. As COVID-19 infections surged in 2021, medical oxygen emerged as the single most important intervention for treating moderate and severe cases of COVID-19