Students from Kenya develop country’s first low-cost ventilator

Like many other countries in the World, Kenya was being affected by the coronavirus and worrying about the potential lack of ventilators that might be necessary to treat patients with Covid-19. According to the Dr. Idris Nzao Chikophe, Secretary-General of the Kenya Critical Care Society, the country had only 259 functional ventilators.

Knowing about this problem, a group of 15 medical and engineer students from Kenyatta University, decide to take matters into their own hands and developed their own ventilator prototype.

“This ventilator detects oxygen and normal air then it gives it enough pressure and volume required to ventilate a patient” explaind fidel Makatia, leader of the group.

The prototype was developed according to the standards of Kenya’s official authorities and test have revealed that it meats all the required parameters.

The team believes that they can produce 50 ventilators in two weeks, and hope to increase production capacity. “We are making ventilators to mitigate the shortage experienced in the country and the African continent as a whole. We have a team of professionals who will oversee mass production of ventilators.”, said the Dean of the University’s School of engineering and Technology.

Adapted from: http://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20200425-kenyan-students-innovate-to-fill-co...