The World Health Organization declared Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic that is rapidly spreading across the globe. The global count by the time of writing stood at over 1.2 Million COVID-19 confirmed cases, with Fifty-Two (52) in Uganda. Critical COVID-19 cases once hospitalized and placed in the Intensive Care Unit for management require a respiratory assistive technology known as a Ventilator.
Analysts have projected increased global demand for ventilators resultant from the continual increase in severe COVID-19 cases. An increase in conventional ventilator production is very likely to fall short of global demand and with high associated cost. In the United States alone, the COVID-19 pandemic has been projected to result into ventilator shortages in the order of 300,000-700,000 units. Uganda has 12 functional Intensive Care Units equipped with a total of 55 functional beds implying an estimated 55 ventilators; in other words, 1.3 beds (with ventilators) per a million people. The ventilators on the market are prohibitively expensive (Price of USD 25,000 per ventilator) for low income countries like Uganda. There is therefore need for low cost ventilators that can be manufactured locally. Such ventilators would bolster the country's surge capacity to provide critical care in case the demand for such care increases.
Makerere University, ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) a project of the School of Public Health, Kiira Motors Corporation, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) have thus scanned the COVID-19 Healthcare Frontline with the view of exploring the Science, Technology, Engineering and Innovation contribution to the solution space in averting the pandemic in Uganda. These parties are therefore working round the clock toward the development of an Open Design Low-Cost Ventilator adapting open access designs from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Florida, and other Public License Ventilator Technology Developers, to the needs in Africa placing strategic emphasis on Supply Chain Localization to engender the scaling of production. The capacity developed in the area for local content participation in the manufacture of Low-Cost ventilators will be valuable to Uganda even beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic.
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