BY
MOSES SSERWANGA
Uganda has made a major break through in the fight
against the global COVID -19 pandemic after
a team of scientists led by Prof.
Barnabas Nawangwe, Vice Chancellor, Makerere University designed and produced a functional open design low
cost medical ventilator engineering prototype to support management of Acute
Respiratory Distress Syndrome caused by the coronavirus.
The low cost medical ventilator project is being
undertaken by Makerere University acting through the Resilient Africa Network,
a Project at the School of Public Health, Makerere University; and the Ministry
of Science, Technology and Innovation acting through Kiira Motors Corporation,according
to Prof. Nawangwe.
Prof. Nawamgwe in social media posts stated that a
team of Ugandan scientists and engineers from Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC)
have registered a major breakthrough by designing, producing and successfully undertaking
bench tests using artificial lungs on the low cost medical ventilator prototype
paving way for the next stage of validation.
Why
test the medical ventilator prototypes
“The main objective was to assess whether the
ventilator’s mechanical function is per expectation in terms of
‘Breathe-in-and-out’ ratios, air pressure, and tidal volume. The prototype
performed excellently well on all parameters, behaving like any standard
ventilator on the market, “ the Vice Chancellor stated.
Two weeks ago, Makerere University, Resilient Africa
Network, Kiira Motors, and the Ministry of Science and Technology innovations
set out to develop a low cost ventilator to fill a critical gap in the event
that COVID-19 cases in the country and the region increased dramatically.
Prof.Nawangwe ,this week a team of Kiira Motors engineers
working with Veterinarians will start the validation process by testing the ventilatoronanimals
before proceeding to clinical trials. “This is an ethical requirement before
any new treatment intervention is conducted in human beings. Animal tests will
be led by a team from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and
Biosecurity at Makerere,” the Vice Chancellor said.
Ventilator
to be approved by National Drug Authority and Uganda National Bureau of
Standards
Following successful validation process, the team
will seek approval from National Drug Authority (NDA) for testing to begin in
human beings.
According to Prof. Nawangwe , in two weeks’ time,
the team will start Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT) on human subjects, led by
Anaesthesiologists and Epidemiologists from the College of Health Sciences,
Makerere. The studies will commence with patients who are moderately ill, then
scale to patients who are severely ill. These assessments will be conducted at
the Uganda Heart Institute. Alongside all these tests, the engineering team
will receive continuous feed-back to optimise the design. Thereafter, the team
will seek pre-launch approval of the product from NDA and relevant quality
certifications from UNBS, following which 40 ready-to-use units will be
initially manufactured. The whole process is estimated to take 8-12 weeks.
“This ventilator will not only be handy for COVID-19
but will transform the country and the region’s capacity to provide
decentralized critical care for patients with other serious conditions” the
Vice Chancellor emphasized .
The Chief Engineer of the Project and Director
Product Development, Kiira Motors Corporation, Mr. Richard Madanda said this
was a major milestone for the country since the low cost medical
ventilators once approved will be used
in hospital’s Intensive Care Units ,
(ICUs) across the country to fight the COVID -19 pandemic .
“ We undertook open technology assessment and
adaptation . We have done tests about
the functionality and verification
of the ventilator with clinicians
and now we are proceeding to do
validation in clinical settings before we license the product and we produce at
least 40 units for medical use across the country ,” Madanda explained.
The World Health Organization has declared Novel coronavirus
(COVID-19) a pandemic that is rapidly spreading across the globe. There are
over one million COVID-19 confirmed
cases, with 55 cases registered 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.
What is a medical
ventilator
A Medical Ventilator is a machine that provides mechanical
ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver
breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing
insufficiently. Uganda has 14 regional
referral hospitals with 12 functional Intensive Care Units equipped with a
total of 55 functional beds implying an estimated 55 ventilators in other words
1.3 beds and ventilators per million people.
Medical Analysts have projected increased global
demand for ventilators resultant from the continual increase in severe COVID-19
cases. Therefore, an increase in
conventional ventilator production is very likely to fall short of global
demand and with high associated cost. This is the reason why it is imperative
to have low cost affordable ventilators
that can be manufactured locally. And
such a ventilator would bolster the country's surge capacity to provide
critical care in the event of increased COVID-19 cases.
Officials said President Yoweri Museveni who is at
the forefront in the national response to stave off the Covid-19 pandemic has welcomed
the initiative and offered to support
the production of ventilators locally for not only the benefit of the Ugandan
people but the East African region and the rest of the world. At US$ 25,000
(FOB) (~UGX 93.7M) a piece, medical ventilators on the international market are
prohibitively expensive.
The team is targeting a starting price point between
US$ 1,000 (~UGX 3.7 Million) and US$ 3,000 (~UGX 11.2 Million) per low-cost
medical ventilator produced in Uganda . In emergency situations like the one we
are facing now, where countries are facing a shortage of ventilators, there is
a need to demonstrate strength in terms of developing and providing local
contingencies. The anticipation is that this low-cost ventilator will be
utilized by the health ministry’s first responders to save lives at risk
because of the coronavirus.
The production of such ventilators in Uganda will
bolster the country's surge capacity to provide critical care in case the
demand for such care increases even post the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The
writer is a media and communications consultant and Advocate of the High Court of Uganda
msserwanga@gmail.com
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