COVID-19 drives up prices of oxygen cylinders as supply falls short

The rapid spread of COVID-19, an illness which causes severe respiratory distress, has prompted many in Bangladesh to buy oxygen cylinders from the market, triggering a supply crisis.

The price of these cylinders, a life-saving tool in many cases, has shot up manifold but its availability in the market has been sparse since last week, according to COVID-19 patients and traders.

Over the past few years, oxygen cylinders were rented out to patients suffering from asthma, pneumonia and other respiratory problems in Bangladesh. A separate sector of administering oxygen and nursing services at home had emerged from.

The novel coronavirus epidemic boosted the new sector once it hit the country in March, according to experts.

More than one hundred online companies have been providing nursing services over the last two months due to the outbreak of COVID-19. All of them are facing an oxygen cylinder shortage, said top officials of companies in the business for the past five years.

The price of a medium quality oxygen cylinder and necessary equipment has skyrocketed to Tk 26,000, from Tk 6,000.

Linde Bangladesh Limited, a member of Linde Group, has been in the gases business, including bottled oxygen, in Bangladesh for over 50 years. Other local companies, including Islam Group and Meghna Group, have also entered the import-based industry in recent times. 

bdnews24.com spoke to oxygencylinderbd, oxygenbd, medishop.com, linde.com.bd, Sismark Limited and other companies for a clear picture of the current crisis.

Al Imran Rubel, manager of oxygencylinderbd, said his company is inundated with phone calls from people seeking oxygen cylinders. But for the last five days, the firm has been unable to sell or rent out any oxygen cylinders, which have either been sold or booked already.

“Some people want to store an oxygen cylinder at home while some are seeking it out of emergency as they suffer from respiratory illness. Some people just want it as a safety measure but we are unable to help them at the moment, as our stocks have run out. The situation turned so grim that some buyers deposited money with the company despite knowing there’s no oxygen cylinder available.”

When contacted on the numbers mentioned in their websites, most staffers of oxygen cylinder companies said the tool was not currently available and to check back again after three or four days.

Imran said his company brought a consignment of 1,500 cylinders from China, but most of those have been sold.

“China has multiplied the cylinder price under the circumstances. A 2,000-litre cylinder now costs Tk 15,000.”

Before the coronavirus crisis, Medishop could not sell or rent out even 50 cylinders in a month but are now getting thousands of calls a day for the product, according to its founder Rakib Uddin. However, the company lacks the capacity to address the demand, he said.

“For the past few days, we couldn’t do business with new clients. We just kept 100 bottles stocked to refill the cylinders that we've already rented out. We’re expecting a consignment of 2,000 cylinders from China in around 20 days,” he said.

Officials of Nursing Home Care said they are providing a package of oxygen support home delivery in two hours for Tk 26,45. The package includes BOC Linde oxygen cylinder, oxygen trolley, flow metre and medical mask.

Faysal Bin Ashik, a customs officer in Dhaka airport, said he bought an oxygen cylinder package for Tk 16,000 but he later found had that the price had soared afterwards.

At least 17 staffers of the Directorate of National Consumers Rights Protection and their family members, including its Director Manzur Mohammed Shahriar and his family, were infected with the novel coronavirus recently.

The condition of Manzur, who had a preexisting heart ailment, was worse than others.

He had one oxygen cylinder set up at home since he contracted the illness, which he began to use a few days ago as he experienced breathing difficulties, Manzur told bdnews24.com.

“I had watched a video tutorial on taking oxygen from a cylinder beforehand. It wasn’t that complicated,” he said.

It is better to keep COVID-19 patients at home, as the hospitals are overwhelmed with increasing numbers of patients, according to Fazle Elahi Milad, a physician of the National Institute of Neuroscience.

The new system of buying or renting oxygen cylinders for patients suffering from respiratory trouble could save many lives, he told bdnews24.com.

“A patient needs oxygen supplied to them when the oxygen level in the body drops below 90 percent. A simple device called pulse oximeter can detect the oxygen level in the body. It can be managed if oxygen is supplied to the patient at home as long as the oxygen level remains around 80 percent. But a patient needs to be put on life support at a hospital if it drops below that level.”