Oxygen stocks running dangerously low in war-hit Ukraine

Vital oxygen supplies to treat patients sick with COVID-19 and other critical illnesses, including war injuries, are running dangerously low in Ukraine. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) says lorries have been unable to carry supplies from plants to hospitals in the country, including capital Kyiv and stocks could run out within the next 24 hours. 

The WHO is working with partners to transport urgent shipments through Poland. 

"The oxygen supply situation is nearing a very dangerous point," WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said.

An estimated 1,700 patients admitted to hospital in Ukraine because of Covid will probably need oxygen treatment. 

But it is also needed for a range of other conditions, including childbirth. Moreover, hospital services are also under threat from electricity and power shortages.

The WHO says several manufacturing plants in Ukraine are also facing shortages of zeolite—a crucial, mainly imported chemical product needed to make safe medical oxygen.

Following the invasion by Russia into Ukraine, the humanitarian needs are expected to be disastrous. 

The armed violence is causing widespread human suffering, civilian casualties, damage to civilian infrastructures, large-scale displacement and the exacerbation of the existing humanitarian needs stemming from years of conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the meantime, WHO officials are currently verifying reports that Russia has attacked hospitals and other health infrastructures in Ukraine—which would be a violation of international humanitarian law, according to Tedros.