Average Per Day Medical Oxygen Demand in India Down by 20% in April

As the country anticipates escalation in the positive coronavirus cases with total number of confirmed coronavirus cases crossing 53,000 on Thursday, the Indian government has been constantly making efforts to ensure the adequate supplies of essential commodities required during the treatment. One such effort is the grant of permission to the industrial oxygen manufacturers to manufacture and sell the gas for medical use. Medical oxygen is mandatory for maintaining appropriate level of the gas in the patient’s blood and becomes a crucial part of the medical procedure when the patient is on ventilator. The move happened after the proposal of All India Industrial Gases Manufacturer’s Association (AIIGMA) which was aimed at ensuring the adequate availability of oxygen for medical use at this time of crisis, when several countries across the world are facing shortage of medical oxygen. Despite rising medical requirements, the consumption of medical oxygen has dropped by 20 per cent to 700 tonnes a day in April from over 900 tonnes last year.AIIGMA has all the industrial and medicinal gas manufacturers as its members and is engaged in production of gas cylinders, cryogenic vessels, gas plants, and other allied equipment. The AIIGMA stated that around 80% of the total oxygen output is sold to serve other industries that use oxygen while only 20% goes for medical use.