By The Nigeria Airforce Engineering department has produced ventilators to help victims of COVID-19 have a chance of surviving. According to sources in the NAF, this was developed in other to bridge the gab in the lack of ventilators to combat covid-19.
BBN gathered that, Air Marshal, Sadique Abubakar, inspected the ventilators in other to authenticate the products.
The Airforce Engineering specialists directs and performs civil engineering design, drafting, surveying and contract surveillance to support Air force facility construction and maintenance programs. Evaluate potential constructions, sites and performs field tests.
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While it may appear to be an arduous task for his peers and even some acclaimed inventors, Mr. Usman Dalhatu, a 200-level student of Mechanical Engineering at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, in Kaduna State, has designed and produced a manual ventilator, to be used in treating coronavirus patients.
Dalhatu, who just clocked 20, said that he decided to fabricate the manual ventilator as part of effort to assist the Federal Government (FG) contain the pandemic, whose cases has been on the raise in the country.
The young inventor, who hails from Gombe State, revealed that it took him only two days to manufacture the ventilator.
With adequate funding and technical supports from expert-technicians , he said, he can mass produce the ventilator within a short period.
The manual ventilator produced by Dalhatu comprises of a motor, a disk that converts circular motion into linear motion, shaft, Carbon dioxide intake and outlet, Oxygen outlet, and a voltmeter.
Other components of the machine include control button, speed increasing point, battery, charging point, and Oxygen mask.
The lecturer, who is the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) Coordinator of Mechanical Engineering Department at the institution, explained that the ventilator produced by Dalhatu is a simple one that can be re-manufactured easily.
He urged the government to mass produce it, saying “doing so will assist the country in case of emergency.
What does a ventilator do?
The machine helps with two important functions: get more oxygen into the lungs and take carbon dioxide out.
“A ventilator is a fairly fancy piece of technological equipment which is designed to breathe for somebody who is unable to breathe effectively on their own,” said David Hill, a pulmonologist who sits on the board of the American Lung Association.
Lungs are interwoven with blood vessels, which is how oxygen gets into the bloodstream and carbon dioxide gets carried out. COVID-19 makes this exchange more difficult in the most severe cases because a patient’s lungs are inflamed and filled with fluid. (This also happens with infections like pneumonia).
A ventilator essentially helps a patient’s lungs accomplish this task. Modern ventilators consist of a pump machine and a tube that health care professionals slide into your windpipe to control airflow.
It’s important to understand that ventilators do not cure COVID-19, but they help support lung function while a patient’s body is fighting the infection.
Abass Latifat
