As the World Health Organization notes that COVID-19 continues, but no longer represents an international public health emergency, its global partners launch a new Global Oxygen Alliance (GO2AL) to continue the essential work of the Global Oxygen Task Force. ACT-A Oxygen Emergency, which raised more than $1 billion to boost access to medical oxygen, including funding to expand production, reduce the price of oxygen, and provide technical support to governments.
“Oxygen, a life-saving medicine in the treatment of acute respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and pneumonia, is essential in surgery, traumatology, emergencies and critical care, as well as in the treatment of the elderly, pregnant women and newborns. born” says the WHO in a statement and adds that “it has also proven to be a fundamental tool in pandemic preparedness, as the world takes measures against possible future outbreaks of respiratory diseases.”
Indeed, the coronavirus left many patients literally gasping for air, exacerbated chronic shortages of medical oxygen in low- and middle-income countries, causing many preventable deaths, and straining already fragile health systems. Even before COVID-19 spread around the world, nine out of ten hospitals in low- and middle-income countries were unable to provide oxygen therapy, causing up to 800,000 preventable deaths each year.
In this context, the Oxygen Emergency Working Group of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) was launched in February 2021 to coordinate the response of multilateral organizations and mobilize grants to help low- and middle-income countries address acute oxygen shortages. And to continue its work, the new Global Oxygen Alliance (GO2AL) was launched in 2023.
The Task Force’s achievements include negotiating pioneering agreements with the world’s two largest medical oxygen suppliers, developing plans to increase regional oxygen production in low- and middle-income countries, and helping more than 100 countries to improve their treatment facilities.
Now, GO2AL is designed to provide sustained support to low- and middle-income countries to fill the huge gaps in the availability and supply of medical oxygen. A core objective of GO2AL is to support countries with technical cooperation, financial solutions, capacity development and demand generation, to ensure that investments in oxygen systems made during the COVID-19 pandemic are sustained.
Access to medical oxygen also favors the treatment of severe malaria and tuberculosis, among others. Full access to this product, as well as pulse oximeters - portable devices that calculate the oxygen saturation of a patient’s blood - could reduce all-cause mortality among hospitalized children by up to 40%.
GO2AL was established in April 2023 with Unitaid and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as co-chairs, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). of Africa) as vice-presidents, and the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Unitaid sharing the secretariat. Other organizations that make up the ACT-A Oxygen Emergency Task Force have also joined GO2AL.
