We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers’: WHO head

A shortage of protective equipment is endangering health workers worldwide, warned the World Health Organization (WHO), citing “severe and mounting disruption to the global supply” caused by “rising demand, panic buying, hoarding and misuse.

Speaking to the media in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus said that “we can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting our health workers”. He warned that shortages of supplies such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, and aprons, are leaving doctors, nurses and other frontline healthcare workers “dangerously ill-equipped” to give proper care to patients.

In order to meet global demand for protective gear, the WHO is calling on industry and governments to significantly boost manufacture by some 40 per cent. In addition, says Tedros, secure supply chains are needed, export restrictions must be eased, and measures to stop speculation and hoarding need to be put in place.

The agency calculates that some 89 million medical masks, 76 million examination gloves and 1.6 million goggles will be needed for the COVID-19 response every month while the epidemic lasts. WHO has supplied around half a million sets of protective equipment to 47 affected countries, but these supplies are rapidly running out.

Prices have surged since the COVID-19 outbreak: the cost of surgical masks has risen some 600 per cent, and the price of gowns has doubled. Supplies can take months to deliver, says WHO, and market manipulation is widespread, with new stocks of equipment frequently going to the highest bidder.