The world is facing coronavirus pandemic currently and not many countries are having proper ventilators that are essential for treating the virus.
Afghanistan is one of them. Afghan health authorities recently said that the country has to buy 50 more ventilators in addition to the 300 devices currently available to battle the pandemic.
In order to help the government, the ‘Afghan Dreamers’ team-Somaya Faruqi, Dyana Wahbzadeh, Folernace Poya, Ellaham Mansori, and Nahid Rahimi- is trying to build cheap ventilators. The team consists of teenagers from 14 to 17.
In 2017 Summer, the team won silver medal in worldwide robotic competition.
Upon hearing that the Herat provincial health department only had four, old, poorly working ventilators, the girls teamed up to work on building cheap ventilators.
“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 recently.
They are using car parts to produce ventilators that would cost something around 300 dollars.
Now, the Heart Regional Hospital officials said the prototypes have to first be checked and only used for the COVID-19 patients after the approval of the Afghan Public Health Ministry as well as the World Health Organization.
