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China oxygen

bar offers

free doses

BEIJING: The owner of an "oxygen bar" in China's northeastern city of Dalian is offering free doses to traffic police who spend all day breathing the city's noxious carbon-monoxide fumes, Xinhua news agency said on Friday

The owner of the oxygen bar in the city of Dalian has issued special cards to 350 local traffic policemen, allowing them to go to his bar to inhale pure oxygen once a week, it said.

The oxygen content of normal air is 21 percent oxygen, but due to pollution in China's industrial north the percentage is often lower, and people breathing such air become easily tired, Xinhua said. An adult needs 500 litres of oxygen a day, it said.

Inhaling pure oxygen helps people to relax and become more energetic, it said.

China already has oxygen bars in Beijing, Fuzhou, Hangzhou and Shenzhen in the south and the northeastern industrial metropolis of Shenyang.-Reuter