COVID-19: Cameroon engineers develop ventilator prototype

“Necessity is the mother of inventions,” even amid the global misery of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across Africa, local engineers are doing their best to boost containment efforts especially in the area of production of ventilators, a key health-saving resource for persons with acute coronavirus.

In Cameroon’s Bafoussam, the chief regional city in the western part of the country, at the basement of an uncompleted building, engineers of L’Agence Universitaire pour L’innovation have produced prototypes of the much needed ventilator and a vaporized sanitizing door.

Serge Apupoh, the technical director of the university speaks about the inventions: “So here we have the ventilator, its mask which goes onto the face of the patient and then the tube which transports the air.

“As you can notice it is still a prototype so other things still need to be put in place, so it works really simple, but it is difficult for me to use now because my breathing is affected by the artificial support system.”

The initiative has been in collaboration with a local who supervised previous productions as the clinic served as a platform to test prototypes. Authorities in th town have also lauded the initiative as life saving.

Some locals said: “We trust that the state will make available the needed support as well so that all these prototypes can become useful.

We mostly import things even when we can produce them locally and with this innovation it is clear that Cameroon has great engineers who can compete at international levels. That said they have all of my support when any need arises.”

The government is expected to evaluate and support the mass production of these products made in Cameroon so as to curb the increasing threats of the pandemic.