Three of the country’s oxygen manufacturers are in talks with government to ensure there would be no shortage of oxygen supply for the pandemic response.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergerie said officials of the Department of Trade and Industry already talked to the oxygen manufacturers located in Calamba, Cebu, and Taguig City, “on how we can generate more oxygen [tanks] so that we can be ready and prepare our health system if in case, hopefully not, the demand for oxygen tanks will increase.”
Vergeire said that in the Philippines, the oxygen tank consumption is 14,000 per day and 5,300 per day in the National Capital Region.
She added that a survey was also conducted to check if the hospitals are experiencing shortage in oxygen supply.
Among the 1,221 hospitals, 3 or .25 percent reported shortage at least once daily; 15 percent or 1 percent reported shortage at least once weekly; 63 percent or 5 percent reported shortage at least once monthly; 943 or 77. 5 percent no shortage at any time of the week or any day.
Meanwhile, among the 546 infirmaries, 2 o .37 percent reported shortage at least once daily; 19 or 3.48 percent or at least once weekly; 54 or 9.89 percent at least once monthly; and 364 or 66 percent reported no shortage.
Vergeire also assured that with the increasing number of cases of Covid-19 in the country, the oxygen tanks are still “enough”.
“Based on the number that I gave you, it [oxygen supply] is enough. It is sufficient, for now,” she said, adding that with the current number of cases a “forecasting” was also conducted if how many oxygen tanks would be needed if the cases would “double”.
“Based on our data, if the cases would double per month, our oxygen supply would still be enough,” the DOH official assured stressing that the government has no room for complacency.
On Friday, the DOH logged 7,733 additional cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1, 087,885.
There were also 4,227 recoveries and 108 death.
Of the total number of cases, 6.1 percent (66,626) are active, 92.2 percent (1,003,160) have recovered, and 1.66 percent (18,099) have died.
Moreover, 64 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on May 5, 2021 and all labs were able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.