Sudanese Search for Oxygen Cylinders amid Third COVID Wave

Sudanese Search for Oxygen Cylinders amid Third COVID Wave

Workers prepare oxygen cylinders for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients inside the Sudanese Liquid Gas Company in Khartoum, Sudan, May 5, 2021. Picture taken May 5, 2021. (Reuters)

Sudan is finding difficulties providing beds in hospitals, medicines and oxygen for COVID-19 patients who were infected during the third wave.

With a population of over 40 million, Sudan has recorded 33,000 cases and over 2,600 deaths since the start of the pandemic, but officials say the real numbers are likely to be much higher given low rates of testing.

In recent weeks, an acute shortage of oxygen, partly due to power cuts that impeded production at the country’s main plant, has left hospitals unable to provide adequate care to desperately ill COVID patients.

“My father passed away due to the lack of an intensive care bed with a ventilator,” said Khartoum resident Sayda Mahmoud, 34, crying as she recounted his last moments.

“I saw him in front of me as he was dying, suffering, and in pain from shortness of breath for hours until he took his last breath while waiting in a government hospital,” she told Reuters.

Social media is awash with desperate pleas for help from relatives seeking beds, drugs and oxygen cylinders for their loved