Palestinian university produces model for inexpensive respirator

Abbas congratulates university on ‘great scientific achievement’

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
An entrance of the Church of the Nativity is seen locked amid coronavirus precautions, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 11, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/MUSTAFA GANEYEH)
An entrance of the Church of the Nativity is seen locked amid coronavirus precautions, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 11, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/MUSTAFA GANEYEH)
Researchers at Al-Quds University in east Jerusalem’s Abu Dis neighborhood have produced a fully computerized model of a respiratory machine for treating coronavirus patients, Prof. Imad Abu Kishek announced Wednesday.
The device was produced by a team of university doctors and engineers who began work on it after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, he said. Its production cost is low, and the device can be carried around easily.
The breakthrough system passed the medical and technical tests supervised by a joint team from the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Engineering, said Kishek, the university’s president. It can be made with locally available components, he added.
The new respirator works in a fully computerized system, provides various types of breathing support and is intended for use in intensive-care units, Kishek said.
The process of producing a device on the basis of the model will begin immediately after it is approved by the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, he said.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas contacted Kishek and congratulated him and the university on “this great scientific and humanitarian achievement,” the university said.
Al-Quds University was established in 1984. It has 15 faculties and 29 institutes and centers, among them the first Palestinian medical school and first research center for nanotechnology.