Supplies of face masks and other protective equipment against the coronavirus are ‘rapidly depleting’ around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Tuesday.
‘Shortages are leaving doctors, nurses and health care workers dangerously ill-equipped to care for COVID-19 patients,’ said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO.
An estimated 89 million masks, 1.6 million sets of goggles and 76 million pairs of examination gloves are needed to protect health care workers from contracting and spreading the virus that’s sickened more than 92,000 people worldwide.
There’s been ‘severe disruption,’ to the global supply chain of this protective equipment, said Dr Tedros, and manufacturing needs to be jump by 40 percent to meet the growing demand.
Instead, shortages and supply hoarding have triggered huge price inflations on vital personal protective equipment (PPE). Face mask prices have surged by six-fold, the cost of gowns has doubled and prices for N95 respirators have tripled.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adghamon Ghebreyesus called on global manufacturers to increase their producto of personal protective equipment by 40%
Medics wearing N95 masks arrive at LifeCare Center in Kirkland, Washington, where five elderly people have died of coronavirus. N95 mask prices have tripled amid shortages
‘Stocks are often sold to the highest bidder,’ said Dr Tedros.
‘We urgently need to increase production’ of PPE, he warned.
It’s a pattern already emerging in the US, where more than 100 people are now infected.
US consumers have been panic-buying PPE, canned food and cleaning supplies in fear that they might have to shelter at home if the coronavirus starts spreading in their community.
Retailers – from local pharmacies to national chains – have reported shortages, and Amazon has been cracking down on price gouging for masks and other products.
Dr Tedros pled with the public to stop hoarding and stockpiling as masks are not recommended for most people and contribute to governmental and hospital shortages.
He also encouraged worldwide governments to incentivze increased manufacturing of protective gear.
In the US, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar as estimated that US health care workers alone will need some 300 million masks amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Already, a more active flu season than usual had strained the US hosptial system and health care supplies here.
President Trump has repeatedly compared coronavirus and the flu, including during a Friday press briefing.
As cases of coronavirus in the US have surged, Americans have been panic buying masks, disinfectants and non-perishable foods (file)
Panic buying is emptying shelves in the US. Such shopping in the US and abroad also partly to blame for dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment, the WHO said Tuesday
More than 92,000 worldwide have coronavirus. Hoarding and stockpiling is leading to severe shortages for health care workers, the WHO said
Dr Tedros addressed that parallel as well.
Coronavirus has killed 3.4 percent of those it has infected globally, as of data relayed by the WHO on Tuesday.
That’s more than three times the fatality rate of flu, which has a global fatality rate of ‘far fewer’ than one percent of people who catch it around the world, said Dr Tedros.
He noted that there are vaccins and treatmens for flu and, although more than 20 vaccine candidates are in development, alongside a number of therapeutics, none are currently available, adding coronavirsu’s relative danger.
Thus far, coronavirus seems more deadly, but isn’t quite as infectious as the flu.
‘It spreads less efficiently than the flu, and transmission does not appear to be drive by people who not sick,’ said Dr Tedros.
‘We don’t even talk about containment for seasonal flu, it’s just not possible, but it’s possible for COVID-19.
‘We can’t treat COVID-19 exactly the way we treat flu, but there are enough similarties that countries are not starting from scratch.’
