Nigerians Have Developed COVID-19 Technology, But No One Is Paying Attention

Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the country in February and it’s attendant impact on citizens, some Nigerians have thought outside the box and invented some technological products that can be used to respond to the pandemic.

THE WHISTLER investigations show that some Nigerians have developed medical technological innovations that can help fight the raging pandemic.

But so far, they do not appear to be getting any attention from the federal government.

Jerry Mallo:

Having successfully constructed the country’s first carbon fibre sports car in 2019, Mallo, a plateau born engineer,  developed and produced a ventilator, one of the basic equipment used to manage Coronavirus patients in critical conditions.

According to Mallo, the Plateau state government made it possible for his team (the Bennie team) to have access to, and examine the workings of an existing ventilator before they went on with the design of the locally-made one.

Some of the advantages of making the ventilator locally, if it is accomplished, is that the ventilators would be available for use in the country at affordable cost.

Apart from Mallo, two other young men from Gombe state have also produced ventilators.

The inventors are:  Yunusa Muhammad Garba of the Human Anatomy Department,  Gombe State University;  Aliyu Hassan, a graduate of Mechatronics Engineering and Usman Dalhatu, a 200 level student, Mechanical Engineering at ABU Zaria, .

Though the Gombe state governor directed the Secretary to the State Government and the Commissioner for Science, Technology and Innovation to liaise with the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology respectively over the inventions,  but nothing happened.

Wale Adeosun:

Adeosun and his team at Wellvis Health, a health tech startup in Nigeria, developed a triaging app.

The COVID-19 Triage Tool is a free online tool to help users self-assess their coronavirus risk category based on their symptoms and their exposure history.

Depending on their answers, users will be offered remote medical advice or redirected to a nearby healthcare facility.

Although, this method might not detect those with latent symptoms, it could help to reduce panic and crowding of testing centres.

Ikpeme Neto :

Wellahealth, a digital triage bot that provides guidance to users, based on Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) guidelines and logs responses for follow up by public health officials as needed.

Mayowa Ayodeji :

MyServiceAgent, an AI-powered intelligent IVR system that can communicate with 100 to 1000 callers simultaneously and disseminate correct information from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as well as pass on the data to the centre to act on swiftly.

Abiri Oluwatosin Niyi :

CMAPIT Analytics, a GIS and Data Visualization software that helps to analyze geospatial data and its variables and also visualize it; data variables concerning the coronavirus outbreak and how it can be tracked and visualized so that predictions are accurate.

When out reporter called the spokesman for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Emeka Oguanuo, on what the agency thinks about the innovations, he told our correspondent on Friday to drop a WhatsApp message, saying he was busy.

But he was yet to respond at the time of filing this report on Saturday.