Nigeria battles shortages amid coronavirus outbreak

Africa News of Tuesday 2 February 2021

Source: reuters.com

02/02/2020

The Lagos businesswoman recalled the ‘horrible’ week she spent in the COVID-19 wing of a city public hospital, where the sense of crisis was only briefly raised by screaming of joy when a patient obtained one of the few oxygen tanks available.

“There was a shortage,” the 47-year-old, who did not want to be named in order to protect staff struggling to treat her, told Reuters. “It has been discussed everywhere. It was like it was the main problem – oxygen, oxygen, oxygen, ”she said, recovering in a private hospital where she moved to.

Authorities are battling a second wave of infections that has caused oxygen shortages across the country. Hospitals in the capital, Abuja, have nearly run out, while demand in Lagos, the center of the outbreak, has increased sevenfold since the start of the fall.

“There was a national oxygen shortage. We were pulling out of all our normal suppliers and finding new suppliers, ”Lagos State Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi told Reuters in an interview.

Demand for bottles in Lagos has increased from around 70 a day at the start of last year to 500 a day from November, Abayomi said.

Nigeria, a population of 200 million, was spared the worst during its first wave of COVID-19 which began in February last year. But a second wave hit hard. More than half of Nigeria’s 131,242 confirmed cases have been recorded in the past three months. The deaths now total 1,586 people.

In December, the government enlisted the Nigerian Air Force to ramp up liquid oxygen production at a factory in the northeastern city of Yola and transport 117 bottles to two COVID-19 centers. in Abuja.

Authorities pledged in January to build a new oxygen plant in each of Nigeria’s 36 states.

A 2018 Clinton Health Access Initiative study found widespread oxygen supply shortages across Nigeria long before the pandemic struck. He said that due to high demand, hospital patients were often asked to pay fees for oxygen which “vary by facility and … can be quite outrageous.”

Nigeria has at least 30 oxygen plants, but there are frequent production interruptions due to poor maintenance, aging equipment and a notoriously unreliable power supply, the world organization said. health.

Abayomi said patients are not billed for oxygen and none who need it have been turned away. But sometimes patients only need oxygen for a few hours, and it is removed afterwards.

“Oxygen is scarce right now, so we’re not wasting it,” Abayomi said.

The businesswoman said the shortage has prompted wealthy patients in her department to pay for oxygen from private providers.

“Either you get it from the outside or you find a way to access it internally. These were the conversations going on, ”she said.

Declan Eugene, an oxygen dealer whose company Feligene Global Enterprises supplies hospitals in Abuja, said oxygen had become “very scarce” in November when demand soared.

Eugene said he received anxious calls from customers, some of whom had not called in seven years.

“It was a really terrible situation,” Eugene said. “And it kind of became a standard.”

The tanks he sold for between 7,000 and 8,000 naira ($ 18-21) reached 20,000 naira ($ 52), he said.

Eugene said the oxygen supply had improved this year because more factories were operating at full capacity. Lagos state launched a new oxygen plant last month that can fill 60 cylinders per day and plans to build two more.

“You cannot be in a position where you need oxygen and cannot give it,” Abayomi said. “It’s just irresponsible and cruel.”