Uganda in plan to import oxygen from Kenya, but is it ready?

The World Health Organization and Uganda plan to import medical oxygen from Kenya as the coronavirus  continues to devastate the neighboring country.

According to Xinhua media, WHO official Yonas Woldemariam said health authorities are working to increase oxygen supply to address the nationwide shortage.

“We are working with the Ministry of Health to increase oxygen supply including options to import from Kenya,” Woldemariam said as reported by Xinhua.

Uganda has run out of Covid-19 vaccines and oxygen as the country grapples with another wave of the pandemic.

Both private and public medical facilities in the capital have reported running out or having acute shortages of AstraZeneca vaccines and oxygen.

Hospitals report they are no longer able to admit patients to intensive care.

Kenya’s oxygen supply

However, on April 7, the Kenyatta National Hospital announced the scaling down of surgical procedures as an oxygen shortage hit the hospital.

KNH chief executive Evanson Kamuri said high oxygen-dependent units have faced rising demand.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe admitted a shortage of oxygen in the country.

“We have around 70 oxygen plants in Kenya. Most of these plants are in disrepair and we need to get them working very urgently," he said.

“We are going to standardise the kind of oxygen plants we have because as we speak, we can’t get spare parts for some of the plants that were built years ago, essentially because they came from sources that are suspect.”

Medical oxygen is an essential commodity in the management of Covid-19, especially for severe cases requiring breathing support.

According to the World Health Organisation, the need for oxygen has increased to 1.1 million cylinders in low to middle-income countries alone.

In a recent survey of emergency care centres across Kenya, over 30 per cent of the facilities did not have a regular supply of oxygen.

Close to 90 per cent of those with oxygen did not have piped oxygen in the emergency department and delivered oxygen directly from the tanks to the patient.

But with the rising cases of critical care patients in need of oxygen in the country, that has quickly gone up to about 560 tonnes in January and the country is now heading for demand of double the last year figure at 880 tonnes.

The government has called on individuals holding cylinders at home, those idle in health facilities and other institutions to release them as requirement for oxygen is critical, to allow for refill.

It is estimated that more than 20,000 cylinders are lying idle in various hands in the country. Each cylinder costs roughly Sh40,000.