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With the help of local materials, a Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Ogun state, Nigeria, has recorded a major breakthrough in the manufacturing of ventilators.
Speaking with Newsmen, the rector of the institution, Olusegun Aluko, said it took the team dedicated seven days to record success in the manufacturing of the most sought medical equipment globally.
According to him, as the global demand for ventilator rises amid the coronavirus pandemic, he tasked a team of professionals including doctors and engineers in the institution to find a solution to the shortage of ventilators in the country.
He explained that after days of hard work, the team was able to design a functional ventilator with less than one million naira.
“It took us one week through trial and error. Now there is no trail again; all the information that we used are documented. All we just need to do now is to feed them into the system, start mass producing and coupling them.
“If we can produce this one within one week, with all the research, that means in a matter of two days we should be able to produce one.”
He added that the institution has the wherewithal to train other members of staff of institutions across the country.
This, he believed, would help to expand the scope of mass production of ventilators in Nigeria.
Describing how the equipment works, an electrical engineer and member of the team, Oloyede Olukayode, said, “The system is an electro-mechanical device that uses electronic components because of its complexity.
“We have different voltages working for different parts of the system. We have the electric motor and we have the display and we have the device through which we get air or oxygen into the patient.”
As the cases of coronavirus rises across Nigeria and other nations of the world, the need of ventilators is on the increase, therefore encouraging local manufacturers becomes imperative
