Medical researchers create barrier tent to protect medical professional treating patients with Covid-19

A team of researchers at the Medical University of Warsaw (MUW) developed a barrier tent to protect healthcare professional from being infected while treating patients with Covid-19.

The tent was designed as an additional source of protection during the process of intubating and extubating patients from ventilators or while transporting the patients from their homes to the hospital or even within the hospital. Dr Marcin Kaczor, one of the developers of the tent, stresses that “it should be used as an additional protection and not as a substitute for individual protection equipment”.

The product was designed to be easy to use and fast to assemble. As Dr Kaczor explains, “We wanted the tent to be quick to use so we do not waste time setting it up, trying it on, etc. That is why it opens like a beach tent: we take it out of the bag and upon one move it is ready to use.”

The tent is made of two flexible rods that support the tick translucent film that makes up the frame. It has four holes, with air-tight sleeves, to allow for medical procedures to be performed on the patients by a doctor and an assistant. The designed was inspired by the Bio-bag, a device created during the Ebola outbreak to transport infectious patients but which, in the view of the team at MUW, is very unpractical to use. So, the team set out to create “something that would be light, easy to use, accessible and cheap”.

The device was developed at the Medical Simulation Centre and counted with the cooperation of the Warsaw University of Technology and the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw. It has gone through airborne tests by the Polish Medical Air Rescue and at the Medical Simulation Center, with good results whoch have prompted the Polish Ministry of Health to order 8000 units.

The experts will continue to improve on the design, now focusing on a system to allow for aerosol removal from inside the tent.

Adapted from: http://www.innovatecee.com/technology/barrier-tent-protects-against-coro...
http://scienceinpoland.pap.pl/en/node/81952