AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRODUCTION of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), for health workers who are taking care of Covid-19 patients has increased by 400 percent in one month since the Muhimbili National Hospital embarked on production of the protective gears.
The development by the national hospital supplements the government’s efforts of ensuring that all health workers battling the corona virus pandemic are protected by equipping them with adequate PPE.
MNH Head of Communication Unit, Mr Aminiel Aligaesha said yesterday in Dar es Salaam that, currently, the production has increased from 120 to 600 PPEs per day, the equivalent .
He said to-date, the national hospital has produced 10,553 PPE, 5,000 of which had already been distributed to the Medical Stores Department (MSD) and others to some zonal and regional referral hospitals, health centres, Non Governmental Organisations, private hospitals, companies, district and municipal councils.
“We will continue to receive orders for PPE because we have the capacity of producing them…the price of one PPE is 50,000/-,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA) has approved the PPE produced by MNH through its letter with reference number BC.248/383/01/13 dated April 23, 2020.
The approval by TMDA allows the MNH to continue producing and distributing PPE all over the country.
“We would like to inform you that the authority has approved your PPE which are overalls, shoe covers and aprons being manufactured by Muhimbili Tailoring Unit, reads part of the letter.
Mr Aligaesha further noted that the production of the protective gears are in compliance with the Tanzania Food, Drugs and Cosmetics (Control of Medical Devices) Regulation, 2015.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), recently urged manufacturers to urgently increase the production of PPE worldwide as more countries are affected by Covid- 19.
The organisation said scarcity of PPE such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, and face shields are leaving the frontline clinicians ill-equipped to treat Covid-19 coronavirus patients.
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Without secure supply chains, the risk to healthcare workers around the world is real.
Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding.
We can’t stop Covid-19 without protecting health workers first.”
