by Dana Halawi

BEIRUT, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese engineers and medical experts are developing local ventilator prototype amid the spread of COVID-19.

Hussein Al Haj Hassan, a Lebanese telecom and network engineer, initiates the ventilator prototype project with Hisham Issa, an electrical engineer and Hussein Hamdan, a mechanical engineer.

"We are happy to see that our initiative has made a huge impact not only on the personal level but also on the corporate level where we have seen many factories and companies starting to work on such prototypes, which will help Lebanon to get prepared in case the number of patients increase," Al Haj Hassan said, adding that the product is a critical medical device which needs time to be produced.

The engineer said his team, consisting of 300 people, aims to meet basic requirements with its product by gathering information from medical doctors.

Ventilators are machines that help people breathe when they can't breathe on their own. The machine works by delivering air through a tube in the patient's windpipe into the lungs.

"What we worry about for now are technical challenges. When we succeed with the prototype we will go to the funding phase," the young engineer said.

He noted that that the Industry Ministry showed high interest in and great support for the project.

Lebanese officials have voiced their concerns about the shortage in the needed materials to fight against COVID-19 including ventilators, masks and disinfectants.

According to the Health Ministry, there exists a total of 1,185 ventilators in Lebanon with 750 of them functionable while the rest need maintenance. Among the 750 functionable ventilators, 500 are currently in use while the rest are stored for COVID-19 emergency cases.

Meanwhile, the Association of Lebanese Banks recently allocated six million U.S. dollars for the import of 120 new ventilators.

Lebanon's number of COVID-19 infections has reached 248 so far. Enditem

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