COVID-19: Kyambogo makes 2,000 face shields for health workers  

COVID-19|HEALTH|FACE SHIELDS

KAMPALA - Kyambogo University has produced 2,000 face shields as part of the personal protective equipment in the fight against COVID-19.

Last week, the Health ministry received the consignment as part of the donation from the university's biomedical engineers.

The shields are made of polycarbonate, are easy to clean, and transparent with high visual clarity.

The donation of the locally made face shields was received by the ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr Diana Atwine.

"A team of biomedical engineers from Kyambogo University have locally made face shields to protect health workers from COVID-19. The team through Silver Bolt donated the face shields to Dr. Diana Atwine to support the COVID-19 response #STAYSAFEUG," stated the post on the Health ministry's official Twitter handle.

However this afternoon , Atwine clarified in a brief chat with New Vision, that the donation of 2,000 shields, was remitted through Silver Bolt, which supervised fabrication.

The Silver Bolt official web portal, profiles the entity as a Ugandan not-for-profit organisation that educates and inspires youth to follow careers in Science and Engineering.

The portal says the organisation empowers early career graduates and budding innovators to capably join the workforce; and works with professionals to nurture the next generation of engineering and computing professionals.

The shield production was facilitated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE), and Special Interest Group on Human Technology(SIGHT).

Health minister Dr Jane Aceng, recently said inadequate PPEs had resulted in 530 health workers getting infected with the novel virus, with a fatality of six.