University engineers throughout South Africa are collaborating with doctors, healthcare workers and business to address critical COVID-19-related Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and hospital equipment shortages.

Innovation hubs within the engineering faculties are custom-designing face shields, reusable face masks with disposable filters, ventilators and intubation units. They are also producing large volumes of sanitisers for hospitals, frontline health workers and communities.

A plastic, medical face mask that can be washed and reused multiple times is being developed for South Africa as an alternative to the N95 face mask, which must be disposed of after each patient. Only the filter in the new plastic mask gets disposed of. N95 rated material is also becoming more challenging to secure from America and Asia as the global demand spikes.

The reusable face mask project is a collaboration between the Product Development Technology Station (PDTS) of the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein (project leader), the University of the Free State (UFS), Nelson Mandela University’s engineering innovation hub eNtsa, and the University of Cape Town (UCT).

The CUT developed the plastic face mask and worked with eNtsa to find suitable filtering materials that are available in South Africa for the mask, as well as for non-invasive ventilators. UCT is currently testing the mask and filters.

“We need to comply with all the medical specifications, hence the face mask and filtration project moved from an intervention project to a research project with input from doctors working in our hospitals, and subject to approval by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority,” says Professor Danie Hattingh, Director of eNtsa.

To address the shortage of ventilators, a consortium of business, industry and university engineers formed the South African Emergency Ventilator Project (SAEVP), led by businessman Justin Corbett. He is collaborating with engineering Professor Carlo van Zyl at Walter Sisulu University and eNtsa’s Dr Ian Wedderburn on reverse-engineering some of the components from the Nuffield 200 ventilator.

“Ian and I are specifically working on the inspiration timer and the mechanical respiratory pressure protection and alert system for the ventilator,” says Prof van Zyl. “It’s a very effective, older mechanical invasive ventilator design and manufacturing should be more cost effective because of its simplicity. At the same time it needs to meet all the South African regulations for medical devices.”

The Nuffield 200 is a pneumatically driven time-cycled ventilator with pre-set volume and flow rate, which is being engineered for use as a ventilator and positive airway pressure device. “It’s robust and can be used in existing and field hospitals anywhere as it does not need electricity and contains no electronics – adding to the design and engineering challenges,” adds van Zyl. Good progress has been made and it is hoped that the first ventilators will be manufactured in South Africa by the end of May.

Another vital piece of hospital equipment – an intubation/extubation unit - was requested by anaesthetist Dr Lorenzo Boretti at Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth. A group of engineering students and academics from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Nelson Mandela University designed and manufactured a prototype intubation/extubation unit to contain and evacuate any aerosolized particles containing COVID-19.

eNtsa engineers are now working on a longer term project where they are evaluating the use of an automatic guided robot with UV lighting. The robot could continuously run through the designated COVID-19 areas in commercial and medical spaces for decontamination and sterilisation purposes, without human intervention.

To address the dire shortage of face shields, engineering faculties throughout the country are hard at work producing thousands of laser-cut and 3D printed face shields for healthcare and frontline workers.

“We optimised the design to meet the requirements communicated to us by ICU doctors, and produced face shields using 3D printing; they are clipless and use A4 clear acetate sheets that are quick and easy to replace.” says a senior engineer at eNtsa, Riaan Opperman.

With the rapid rise in the numbers of healthcare workers using this face shield, eNtsa collaborated with Provolution, a Port Elizabeth start-up that uses 3D printing, to increase capacity and further optimise the design. Together they still could not meet the growing demand, at which point they made the face shield design freely available for download. Members of the Eastern Cape 3D printing community were invited to collaborate, and 40 responded.

With eNtsa coordinating the materials, printing and distribution, in April they distributed over 3500 face shields to front line medical and security staff throughout the Eastern Cape. It costs R31.00 to produce one shield. As far as possible, face shields are distributed at no cost to the public sector, while industry and the private sector can purchase them at cost price. This has been made possible through the support of government and private entities. The Mandela Bay Development Association (MBDA) has provided funding for an additional 4000 face shields and additional printers to increase the production capacity. The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), an initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), has funded the engineering hours via the Technology Station Programme. Corporates are also encouraged to purchase face shields for R100.00 each to help fund the production of additional donated shields for public hospitals and clinics in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape.

It is gratifying to see so many people using their skills in unprecedented ways to come up with innovative solutions that meet the COVID-19-related health challenges head on.