JAPAN / Science & Health

'Last resort' COVID-19 treatment in short supply at Japan's hospitals

An ambulance carrying a Japanese national who returned from China's Wuhan arrives at a Tokyo hospital in January. Hospitals in the country are being increasingly stretched thin due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus. | KYODO

By Ryusei Takahashi
Staff Writer

Mar 12, 2020

A treatment used as a "last resort" for severe cases of COVID-19 could soon reach capacity as hospitals nationwide strain to meet the demands of a growing domestic outbreak.

In Japan, 24 patients with severe infections have been treated or continue to be treated using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, a resource intensive but cutting-edge machine used occasionally to remedy serious lung and heart problems.

There are upwards of 1,300 ECMO machines available in the country, according to a survey released in March by the Japanese Society of Respiratory Care Medicine and the Japan Association of Clinical Engineers.

'Last resort' COVID-19 treatment in short supply at Japan's hospitals

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