After weeks of suffering and an unprecedented rise in COVID-19 casualties, a senior executive in the Indian industrial sector announced on Friday that the acute medical oxygen supply crisis in India is expected to ease by mid-May, with production increasing by 25 percent and transportation infrastructure prepared to handle the surge in demand due to the significant rise in COVID-19 cases. Health Ministry data on Friday indicated that India recorded a record daily increase in COVID-19 infections, reaching 386,452 cases, while the death toll surged by 3,498 in the past 24 hours.
Reuters statistics showed that India added 7.7 million infections to its total number of cases since the end of February when the second wave gained momentum. In comparison, it took India nearly six months to add the previous 7.7 million infections, highlighting the magnitude of the current tragedy given the four-month difference in reaching the same number of cases.
Dozens of hospitals in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai have faced gas shortages this month, prompting patients' relatives to search for oxygen cylinders, sometimes without success. Moloy Banerjee from Linde, the largest producer in the country, stated that medical oxygen consumption in India has increased more than eightfold from normal levels, reaching about 7,200 tons per day this month.
Banerjee, who heads Linde’s gas activities in South Asia, told Reuters on Thursday, "This is the cause of the crisis because no one was prepared for it, especially with the sharp substantial increase." He added that Linde and other suppliers are ramping up production to more than 9,000 tons per day in total by mid-next month.
Banerjee noted that a logistical crisis is also hindering the swift transportation of oxygen from surplus areas in eastern India to the heavily affected northern and western regions, and it will be resolved in the coming weeks. The population of India is approximately 1.35 billion people.
