Comfortable position, no oxygen shortage in 10 months, says Centre ,

NEW DELHI: Denying reports on scarcity of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday said that there was never any shortage in the last 10 months, and that India was in an "extremely comfortable position".

The Ministry had also initiated the process to import about 100,000 MT of LMO as a precautionary measure in anticipation of a surge in COVID cases in the country as the festival season and winters were around the corner.

"This is to ensure adequate stocks and to address any anticipated surge in COVID-19 cases," Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said at a weekly press briefing here.

He also shared the data pertaining to last one-and-a-half months on the consumption and reserves of medical oxygen to buttress his point on no scarcity of LMO.

The data said that consumption of medical oxygen declined while the reserves increased during this period. The data was broken down as weekly average starting from September 2 to October 14.

"The weekly average consumption reduced from 2,791 metric tonne (MT) from the 2nd week of September to 2,503 MT in the second week of October. Meanwhile, medical oxygen stock increased from 14,932 MT to 17,103 in the same period," he said. The Health Ministry data however revealed that COVID-19 patients on oxygen support in hospitals soared from 43,022 to 57,357 between September 1 and October 19. (IANS)

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