Kenya's oxygen production firm Hewatele is doubling production this year to keep up with surging demand from hospitals that are treating critically ill Covid-19 patients, the company said.
Demand for the commodity has more than doubled to 880 tonnes from 410 tonnes before the pandemic, the ministry of health said, causing a steep shortage due to lack of installed capacity.
“This country doesn't have capacity to put 2,000 patients under high flow oxygen at the same time. We need to do something urgently,” said Bernard Olayo, founder of the company. The firm produces oxygen by the chemical method, using a naturally occurring salt to separate nitrogen from the air.To resolve that issue, Hewatele will invest another $15 million next year to build an air separation unit to produce liquid oxygen, which will lead to a ten-fold output increase to 20 tonnes per day, he said.
“Children would die of pneumonia, not because we didn't know what to do, but because we didn't have oxygen,” he said.
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