Better Futures Oxygen CoLab welcomes the WHO Executive Board recommendation to adopt bold new oxygen resolution
Better Futures Oxygen CoLab welcomes the news from the World Health Organization’s Executive Board that recommends the Access to Medical Oxygen Resolution be adopted at this year’s World Health Assembly in May 2023.
Medical Oxygen is a life-saving essential medicine with no substitute and is on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and Essential Medicines for Children. The Resolution asks that member states:
- Include medical oxygen and related devices on national lists of essential medicines and devices
- Develop costed national plans to improve access
- Establish regulations and policies informed by WHO guidelines
- Assess access gaps
- Ensure safe use of medical oxygen
- Integrate oxygen systems into healthcare infrastructure
- Invest in innovations, and secure financing and resilient supply chains.
The aim being to increase access to quality assured, affordable, and reliable medical oxygen for all.
Oxygen CoLab believes that no person or child should die because of lack of oxygen. We’re interested not in the same old tried and failed methods, but in changing the system to solve this complex challenge, disrupting the underlying business-as-usual global oxygen market, and generating progressive action in the longer term.
Along with all members of the Every Breath Counts Coalition, we are now calling on World Health Organization Member States to support the Access to Medical Oxygen Resolution in May 2023.
Phil Outram, Tech and Innovation Advisor, FCDO said:
“This resolution is vitally important. It serves as a global call to action for Member States to prioritise medical oxygen access, invest in infrastructure and personnel, and ensure equitable and sustainable availability of medical oxygen. In doing so Member States can save lives and improve health outcomes, especially in resource-constrained settings.
There has been an enormous amount of effort across the globe to increase access to oxygen. We hope that this acts as a call for collaboration across systems. We are so pleased to see such focussed actions and look forward to working with our partners to achieve them together.”
About the Better Futures Oxygen CoLab
Better Futures CoLab is a platform that brings together the brightest players to incubate futures that everyone can have a stake in, which includes the Oxygen CoLab and Vaccine Data CoLab.
Born from the UKaid-funded COVIDaction programme in December 2020, Oxygen CoLab is a direct response to the critical shortage of medical oxygen in many countries during the pandemic. Delivered by Brink and DT Global, with UNICEF as a strategic partner and funded by UKaid, the CoLab aims to support existing coalitions on oxygen — connecting those working on innovation of oxygen concentrators together to share challenges and potential solutions.
Learn more about our work:
