The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern that countries’ abilities to respond to COVID-19 epidemic are being compromised by severe and increasing disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment.
Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, in his daily update on COVID-19 on Tuesday, said that countries’ response abilities was hampered by rising demands, hoarding and misuse of personal protective equipment.
“Shortages are leaving doctors, nurses and other frontline health workers dangerously ill-equipped to care for COVID-19 patients, due to limited access to supplies such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, gowns and aprons.
“We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers.
“Prices of surgical masks have increased six-fold, N95 respirators have more than tripled and gowns cost twice as much.
“Supplies can take months to deliver, market manipulation is widespread and stocks are often sold to the highest bidder,” Ghebreyesus said.
He said that WHO had shipped nearly half a million sets of personal protective equipment to 27 countries, but supplies were rapidly depleting.
According to him, WHO estimates that each month, 89 million medical masks will be required for the COVID-19 response; 76 million examination gloves and 1.6 million goggles.
He said that WHO has guidelines on how to rationalise the use of personal protective equipment in health facilities and manage supply chains effectively.
“We’re working with governments, manufacturers and the Pandemic Supply Chain Network to boost production and secure supplies for critically affected and at-risk countries.
“Globally, it is estimated that personal protective equipment supplies need to be increased by 40 per cent.
“We continue to call on manufacturers to urgently increase production to meet this demands and guarantee supplies,” he said.
The director-general called on governments to develop incentives for manufacturers to ramp up production, including easing restrictions on the export and distribution of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies.
“Once again, this is a question of solidarity.
“This cannot be solved by WHO alone, or one industry alone. It requires all of us working together to ensure all countries can protect the people who protect the rest of us,” he said.
Besides, he said that there were 90,893 reported cases of COVID-19 globally, and 3,110 deaths.
According to him, in the past 24 hours, China reported 129 cases, the lowest number of cases since Jan. 20.
“Outside China, 1,848 cases were reported in 48 countries. 80 per cent of those cases are from just three countries: the Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Italy.
“Twelve new countries have reported their first cases, and there are now 21 countries with one case, while 122 countries have not reported any cases,” he said.
Ghebreyesus stressed that the actions taken by these newly-affected countries would be the difference between a handful of cases and a larger cluster. (NAN)
