Belarus to use 3D printers to produce PPE

03/04/2020

According to BelTA Belarusian engineers have found a way to help protect Belarusian doctors from coronavirus. The engineers are asking to support their initiative.

“Belarusian doctors are joining the international efforts to protect doctors from COVID-19: a goal has been set to 3D print more than 1,500 multi-use face shields for hospitals of Minsk and oblast capitals within a week. However, other people and businesses should also get involved to make this happen. It is not only about money. Materials for the first batch will be purchased by the Dobra foundation and signatories to the United Nations Global Compact in Belarus, however inadequate technical capacities make it difficult to achieve this goal,” the foundation informs.

The initiative to 3D print face shields came from the Minsk hackerspace – a workshop to develop robots and drones, as well as various software programs and engineering projects. Members of the workshop asked doctors how they can help and after that engineers started printing special shields that are most commonly used during intubation by doctors from around the world.

“We launched a chat in Telegram where we added doctors. We showed them what we can do. Soon after that we received a great number of requests from hospitals. We have realized that we will not be able to handle it on our own, therefore we are ready to share this model with anyone who has 3D printers or CNC laser cutting machines. We can also provide materials. Our goal is to build capacities (one shield takes about 1.5 hours to print) in order to help doctors in time,” the engineers said.

The first such shields have already been delivered to several hospitals in Minsk and are being tested by doctors.

Useful links:

https://eng.belta.by/society/view/belarus-to-use-3d-printers-to-produce-ppe-129461-2020/

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