For patients with a range of medical conditions, from pneumonia to COVID-19, oxygen therapy can make the difference between life and death.
In low-income countries, poor access to medical oxygen leads to high mortality rates for people with hypoxemia, or low blood oxygen. That resulted in over 1 million preventable deaths a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, with many more people dying needlessly because of oxygen shortages over the past 26 months. But despite being vital to every human being, oxygen doesn’t fit neatly into any given global health issue, meaning it is hard to find donors willing to invest in it.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that. It drove a surge in demand for oxygen globally, with some countries seeing a tenfold increase over the course of a few weeks. It also drove more financing toward improving its availability in low- and middle-income countries.