Somalia opens nation’s 1st public oxygen plant amid pandemic

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia has opened the country’s first public oxygen plant as the Horn of Africa nation with one of the world’s weakest health systems combats COVID-19. The oxygen plant was installed Thursday at a hospital in the capital, Mogadishu. It is expected to produce 1,000 cylinders of oxygen a week. The scarcity of medical oxygen has hurt response efforts across many African nations as the delta variant of the coronavirus now drives the bulk of infections on the continent of 1.3 billion people. Insecurity in Somalia poses an added challenge to efforts to fight the pandemic.