A 21-year-old Somali mechanical engineer has invented a homemade respirator to try to help his country during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The east African nation is suffering from a severe lack of respiratory equipment, which concerned Mogadishu-based Mohamad Adawe.

Previously, medical staff in Somalia have mainly had to assist patients' breathing by manually pumping the equipment. This has also brought them into close contact with the infected people, heightening the risk of con...

Lately, there’s been much buzz in the news about an unorthodox way of finding a vaccine for COVID-19: human challenge trials. Whereas plenty of articles have debated whether human challenge trials should be legal, this article focuses on whether we have a moral duty to participate in them. The goal here isn’t to single-handedly answer this complex moral question, but rather to provide two frameworks we can use to help us arrive at our own answers.

What exactly is a human challenge ...

Global health care is experiencing an unprecedented surge in the number of critically ill patients who require mechanical ventilation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The requirement for relatively long periods of ventilation in those who survive means that many are considered for tracheostomy to free patients from ventilatory support and maximise scarce resources. COVID-19 provides unique challenges for tracheostomy care: health-care workers need to safely undertake tracheostomy procedures and ...

Abstract"A novel coronavirus was recently discovered and termed SARS-CoV-2. Human infection can cause coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has been rapidly spreading around the globe. SARS-CoV-2 shows some similarities to other coronaviruses. However, treatment options and a cellular understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection are lacking. Here we identify the host cell pathways modulated by SARS-CoV-2 infection and show that inhibition of these pathways prevent viral replication in human cel...

The COVID‐19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID‐19.

A global expert‐response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian beta‐regression model was used to estimate 12‐week cancellation rat...

Healthcare workers face unprecedented risks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly contagious and is transmitted via respiratory droplets, with evidence suggesting the possibility of airborne transmission. Air and surface contamination has been demonstrated four meters from the source. Nosocomial transmission from patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome to healthcare workers has been reported, while many institutions face shortages of personal p...

At PAL Robotics we are already regularly customizing and adapting our robots so that they can be used in European-funded research projects. The overall aim of these projects is to make new robot uses, such as widespread use in hospitals and residential homes, a reality. Such testing of our robots in new scenarios therefore makes them viable to be quickly incorporated into medical settings to help fight coronavirus (COVID-19).




Our robots including ARI, TIAGo an...

With ROBERT, the company Life Science Robotics (LSR) has developed a robot for mobilizing patients. Especially in times of social distancing, the robot-based medical device ROBERT can support physiotherapists in their work. The lightweight robot LBR Med from KUKA is used for this purpose.

The robot-based medical device ROBERT supports physiotherapists in their work. Technical assistants can be used in particular when people have to keep their distance from each other in order to p...

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our society to evaluate our core values and ethics. In a crisis like none other, health care facilities and physicians are now facing shortages of ventilators, beds, and even basic personal protective equipment. Many physicians are already facing a profound ethical dilemma: how to allocate these resources during shortages; with some hospitals, states and countries even having to establish policies on which groups of patients to prioritize in ...

We read with interest the report by Blanco and colleagues of five people living with HIV who were admitted to a Barcelona hospital with COVID-19. We believe that caution is required before drawing conclusions on the outcome of COVID-19 in this population. 

Evidence is evolving that protease inhibitors developed for the treatment of HIV, both lopinavir and darunavir boosted by ritonavir or cobicistat, are not efficacious against severe acute respiratory syndrome cor...

3D Printing manufacturers are committed to supporting a united front to address shortages and rising demand triggered by COVID-19 to better help efforts that protect the lives of those impacted by this global pandemic.




Support for medical device/equipment manufacturers and hospitals/hospital systems:

The 3DP community is already mobilizing resources to support critical needs. Please access website for more information.




Join the Initiative:
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Caracol-AM, a 3D printing provider in Italy, is manufacturing face shields and masks using both its proprietary extrusion system mounted on a KUKA industrial robotic arm and more traditional fused deposition modeling printers. According to KUKA, the company is producing 1,000 parts daily for use by local healthcare workers.
America Makes has announced the winners of its Fit to Face – Mask Design Challenge, hosted with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The de...