All-Girl Afghan Robotic Team Tries to Build Cheap Ventilators to Help COVID-19 Patients
Ateam of six Afghan girls who won recognition at an international robotics contest has started to build low-cost ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic is on the rise in the country.
“The world is facing a health crisis. The world is suffering from a shortage of vital medical equipment for the fight against the pandemic, including respiratory ventilators,” Summaya Faruqi, 17, the team captain told Xinhua.
In the summer of 2017, the all-girl robotic building team known as the “Afghan Dreamers” won a silver medal during the First Global Challenge event, a robotic contest that encourages young people to pursue careers in science, held in the United States.
“We conferred with medical doctors and experts on the design and production of the ventilators, and their suggestion was that the devices should not be manual, but operated by power,” Ms Faruqi said.
The team of robot builders is from the country’s western province of Herat, where the disease is on the rise after thousands of Afghan refugees returned from hard-hit neighboring Iran. The region has the second highest number of cases of the virus and mortality rate after Kabul.
As of yesterday, official figures showed there were 8676 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan and 193 deaths across the country.
Some pundits say the exact figure could be much higher, due to limited testing kits available.
The team of girls are using car parts to achieve their dream of producing scores of low-cost ventilators as health authorities continue to try to increase their intensive care capabilities to save the lives of as many victims of the pneumonia-causing virus as possible.
The girls’ motive was to put their skills into use upon hearing that the Herat provincial health department only had four, old, poorly working ventilators with which to treat patients needing vital respiratory assistance.
Each ventilator costs US$30,000 to US$40,000 (FJ$ 66,833.27-FJ$89,111.03) in global markets, but the team members said they were able to build the muchneeded devices for just US$300 (FJ$ 668.32) each.