Respiradores de producción 100% nacional para atender a los enfermos de coronavirus en Marruecos

A respirator 100% 'made in Morocco'. The engineers at the factory of the Society for Precision Mechanical Studies and Achievements (SERMP) are fully dedicated to its production, with the aim of using it to treat patients with COVID-19 in the country's medical centres. According to the Moroccan Minister of Industry and Trade, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, the professionals of the SERMP are working “very fast” in the manufacture of these respirators, the local agency MAP reported on Tuesday. According to the weekly Challenge, the first 500 units will be ready next week. The Moroccan authorities are continuing their fight against the epidemic against time. 

The respirator is the joint result of the work of the University Mohamed VI Polytechnic (UM6P) of Ben Guerir (central Morocco), the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Green and Numeric Economy, the Grouping of Moroccan Aeronautical and Space Industries (GIMAS), the National Institute of Posts and Telecommunications (INPT), the Moroccan Centre for Science, Innovation and Research (MASCIR), the National Agency for Telecommunications Regulation, the Electronic Innovation Pole and the Aviarail-PILLIOTY-SERMP group. The result, in short, of the effort of young researchers and of companies and entities mobilized with speed. 

“We are already in the second version that, in addition to providing ventilation, allows us to have sensors and send oxygen in a more technical way,” said the head of Industry and Commerce praising the contribution of all parties. “We have also decided, with the engineers, to move on to a third stage, even though we don't have that need today,” concluded Elalamy.  

For his part, SERMP director Badre Jaafar emphasized that the respirators are being manufactured according to high aeronautical standards, specifically the process followed by the parts that make up the engines of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. “The design of this respirator is entirely Moroccan, from the manufacture of the gear motor, electronic cards, other mechanical parts, to assembly,” Jaafar said in statements collected by the MAP.

The respirator has an autonomy of 3,000 hours and can work even in isolated rural areas thanks to the electricity supply offered by the national network or ordinary batteries, echoed the Moroccan digital lesinfos.ma.

The researcher of the UM6P, Hafid Griguer, explained in statements collected by Challenge how a team of about twenty Moroccan industrialists and engineers have been joining forces for two weeks for the production of the prototype. In his opinion, the peculiarity of these respirators lies in the fact that raw materials and “parts totally available in Morocco” have been used for their manufacture - without the need, therefore, for imports - and in their capacity to function “in all circumstances”.

“This is a project of several people. This initiative is part of the real will to implement solutions as quickly as possible in the fight against the pandemic (...) I would like to thank all the teams that were mobilised because we were not sleeping and were far from our children and our families. We limited ourselves to creativity to work and develop this product. We designed it with a lot of emotion,” he said in statements collected by the aforementioned Moroccan weekly. 

In addition to these 100% Moroccan respirators, researchers at the aforementioned university have designed a device to measure the temperature of people who may have been infected with the coronavirus. 

These are not the only material achievements of the neighbouring country in its fight against the coronavirus epidemic in recent days. Several local factories are racing to produce sanitary masks for the population. The Moroccan authorities have been forcing their citizens to go out in the streets wearing masks since Tuesday. 

“At the moment we have reached a production capacity of three million masks per day, and from next week we will reach 5 million per day,” said the director of communication of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Taoufik Moucharraf, in statements collected by the website bladi.net. 70,000 convenience stores now have masks on their shelves. According to the Moroccan Ministry of Health, these nationally produced parts have a four-hour usage time and can only be used once.  

Moreover, in the middle of last week, the first field hospital built in Morocco to treat coronavirus patients was completed in Benslimane. The work of the Moroccan armed forces has made the hospital a reality in record time: six days. It has 360 beds, 20 resuscitation units and 13 doctors, reports the local digital H24INFO. 

Likewise, the field hospital in Nouaceur -near Casablanca- is operational since this Monday. It was also built in only six days to attend the patients of COVID-19, especially those requiring intensive care.  The center has three hospitalization units and a capacity of 200 beds, in addition to all the necessary means and equipment, also reports the digital H24INFO. 

In addition, the Moroccan authorities are setting up a field hospital at the Casablanca Fair this Saturday. The emergency medical center will have 700 beds distributed in four separate and completely autonomous areas, and the rooms will be equipped to treat patients of COVID-19, according to the Moroccan Ministry of Health. It will cost the various administrations about 45 million dirhams (the equivalent of approximately 4.3 million euros), reports the digital Medias24. It should be operational in less than two weeks. 

In the meantime, the coronavirus epidemic continues to advance in Morocco. At the time of writing, the number of confirmed cases was 1,275, with 93 people dying and 97 recovered, according to official figures. Morocco has been in a state of health emergency since March 20, which will initially last until April 20.