By Jeffrey T. Lewis

SÃO PAULO--Brazil-based multinational beer maker Ambev SA said Monday it will convert part of a brewery in São Paulo state into an oxygen producing and bottling facility to help supply the state's hospitals during a steady rise in the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19.

The São Paulo-based brewer said the plant, in the city of Riberao Preto, will bottle enough of the gas to provide 166 people per day with oxygen. Ambev is currently acquiring the necessary equipment and said it expects production to begin at the start of next month.

The facility will operate 24 hours a day and will produce 120 cylinders per day, each containing 10 square meters of the gas. Ambev will donate the cylinders to health care facilities with a critical oxygen supply situation.

São Paulo Governor João Doria said Monday that the state had reached an agreement with other oxygen suppliers for them to increase production to guarantee enough of the gas to set up more intensive care units with beds for patients in need of oxygen supplies.

The state has also called on industries that use bottled oxygen to donate cylinders of the gas to help overcome a shortage that has arisen as the number of people hospitalized with breathing problems has risen rapidly. The state hopes to receive 3,000 donated cylinders in coming days.

The effort comes as the number of new infections with the coronavirus, and the number of deaths from Covid-19, have risen to records in the state and in Brazil. The number of deaths in a day in the country from Covid-19 rose above 2,800 for the first time last week, while the 14-day moving average of deaths has risen to a new record every day this month.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-22-21 1448ET