Oxygen shortages - The African Mirror

Jul

2021

COVID-19 deaths in Africa surge 43% week-on-week, WHO says

AFRICA recorded a 43% jump in COVID-19 deaths last week as infections and hospital admissions have risen and countries face shortages of oxygen and intensive-care beds, according to the World Health Organization. The continent's case fatality rate - the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases - stands at 2.6% against the global average of 2.2%, WHO Africa said in its weekly briefing. "Africa's third wave continues its destructive pathway, pushing past yet another grim milestone as the continent's case count tops six million," Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, told the briefing. The surge in infections, which is partly…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Ethiopian doctor warns of oxygen shortages

COVID-19

EMELINE WUILBERCQ ETHIOPIA rolling out its first COVID-19 vaccines among frontline health workers, but the vast country of 110 million people still faces an uphill struggle to beat the pandemic, according to a senior doctor in Addis Ababa. The mass vaccination drive began on Saturday, exactly a year after a Japanese man in the capital became the Horn of Africa nation's first confirmed coronavirus case. Natnael Bekuretsion, the 28-year-old medical director of Eka Kotebe General Hospital, was not among the first group of healthcare employees to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, but he said the arrival of the doses was "light…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Oxygen, oxygen, oxygen’: Nigeria battles shortages amid COVID-19 surge

COVID-19

LIBBY GEORGE and ALEXIS AKWAGYIRAM THE Lagos businesswoman recalled the "horrendous" week she spent in the COVID-19 wing of a city public hospital, where the sense of crisis was lifted only briefly by whoops of joy when a patient secured one of the few available tanks of oxygen. "There was a shortage," the 47-year-old, who did not wish to be named in order to protect the staff who struggled to treat her, told Reuters. "It was discussed all around. It felt like that was the main issue – oxygen, oxygen, oxygen," she said, convalescing in a private hospital to which…