{"id":1651,"date":"2021-10-21T08:55:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2021-10-21T08:55:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:55:15","slug":"how-much-medical-oxygen-does-a-critically-ill-patient-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1651","title":{"rendered":"How much medical oxygen does a critically ill patient need?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I was reading about Africa&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHOAFRO\/status\/1445345306049122308\">need for medical oxygen<\/a>\u00a0in reference to South Sudan&#8217;s new oxygen plant.\u00a0 In general, how much oxygen is needed per critically ill patient?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><u>Answer:<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>In general, critically ill patients will need 43,200 liters of oxygen per day, and each patient&#8217;s need could last for a week or more.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov\/management\/critical-care\/oxygenation-and-ventilation\/\">Oxygen supplementation<\/a>\u00a0is typically required for COVID patients who have severe illness, and only\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.who.int\/iris\/rest\/bitstreams\/1274720\/retrieve\">medical oxygen<\/a>&#8212; at least 82% pure oxygen, free from any contamination, and generated by an oil-free compressor&#8211; should be supplied. Per\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov\/management\/critical-care\/oxygenation-and-ventilation\/\">NIH<\/a>, the optimal oxygen saturation (SpO2) target for severely ill patients is 92% to 96%; medical oxygen needs will vary from patient to patient.\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.who.int\/iris\/rest\/bitstreams\/1274720\/retrieve\">The WHO<\/a>\u00a0estimates that severely ill patients will need 10 L\/min of oxygen (14,400 L\/day) while critically ill patients will need 30 L\/min (43,200 L\/day).\u00a0 Meanwhile,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-021-81444-9\">a study<\/a>\u00a0on the clinical course of severely ill patients requiring oxygen supplementation showed that median oxygen flow during the whole period of hospitalization was 2 L\/min (2,880 L\/day, much less than WHO&#8217;s estimate) and that the average duration of oxygen needs is 8 days (est. 23,040 L\/patient).\u00a0 Finally, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.worldbank.org\/health\/oxygen-all-during-covid-19-coronavirus-and-beyond\">World Bank estimates<\/a>\u00a0that &#8220;treating a child with severe pneumonia over 3-4 days can require anything from 4,000 to 8,000 cubic liters of oxygen.&#8221;\u00a0 I asked some O2 experts about which estimate to use between the WHO and the small study&#8211; as I would have guessed, they suggested using the WHO estimate and also mentioned that children require much less O2, aligning with World Bank estimates.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re interested in tracking global needs,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.path.org\/programs\/market-dynamics\/covid-19-oxygen-needs-tracker\/\">PATH maintains a global oxygen needs tracker<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0I was reading about Africa&#8217;s\u00a0need for medical oxygen\u00a0in reference to South Sudan&#8217;s new oxygen plant.\u00a0 In general, how much oxygen is needed per critically ill patient?\u00a0\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0In general, critically ill patients will need 43,200 liters of oxygen per day, and each patient&#8217;s need could last for a week or more.\u00a0Oxygen supplementation\u00a0is typically required for COVID [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[85,50,67],"tags":[241],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children","category-guidelines","category-treatment","tag-oxygen","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/pexels-photo-6202735.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}