MEDICAL reports and journals show that medical oxygen is the single most essential medicine for treating patients with COVID-19.

Nonetheless, this vital component used in the fight against the fatal respiratory virus is not readily available in most hospitals where such patients are treated.

The lack of the oxygen and other related supplies has among others resulted in many lives being gratuitously lost on most hospital beds.

Such deaths could have been evaded with less aggravation if health centres and hospitals were equipped with adequate and necessary medical oxygen supplies.

Patients in hospitals across the world have complications because of delays in receiving critical medical treatment.

The inevitable truth is that the advent of the fatal COVID-19 has underlined countless cracks in most health care systems around the globe.

This is evident even in countries with the best economies and offer top notch health care services like South Africa.

The country (SA) with some of the best health facilities in the continent is among others experiencing serious bed shortages while several of its hospitals grapple with limited oxygen supplies to treat patients with the respiratory disease.

The shortage of medical oxygen is prevalent in most African countries and Lesotho has not been spared from the dearth.  

Media reports show that the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine and all the protocols prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) can alone not overcome the deadly virus that has already consumed a total of 4 602 971 people as of September 8, 2021.

Statistics show that there are currently 222 897 358 confirmed COVID-19 cases in 221 countries in the world.

The lack of the vital medical oxygen in local hospitals has however, prompted Lesotho to start producing some for its own people.