Nature Medicine reported on how long-term funding and investment is needed to help Africa prepare for endemic COVID-19, citing the success of BHI’s Find and Fix oxygen initiative. Read the full article.
The endemic phase of COVID-19 should also be accompanied by an investment in healthcare workers. Before COVID-19, Ghanaian biomedical and facilities engineer David Acolatse had no experience working with medical oxygen facilities. But about two years later, he spends his days traveling from one African country to another, helping to set up, maintain, service, repair and improve the productivity and operations of pressure-swing adsorption oxygen-generating plants, which produce medical-grade oxygen.
Acolaste is part of a team organized by Build Health International to improve medical oxygen systems in sub-Saharan Africa. But with the continent now coming to terms with endemic COVID-19, Acolatse says that the infrastructure for medical oxygen will outlive the pandemic.
“Medical oxygen is in use in surgical theaters and in intensive care units, as well as the care of people who suffer from pneumonia and other respiratory disorders,” says Acolaste.