A young Somali engineer builds a ventilator in Mogadishu, as more and more people who are in need of the machines are dying of COVID-19 virus in the country.

Mohamed Adawe, a 21-year-old resident of Mogadishu, said he was inspired by a social media post from a Somali father who said his son died due to lack of a ventilator.

“Our country does not have the capacity to provide all patients with ventilator, and that has prompted me to try it myself. now at least that the machine I built in my house could assist patients breath. ” he added.

Mohamed Adawe said construction of the machine took him about twenty days.

“This device is made of a hand-held respirator, but this young man has invented an easy way to have the machine work automatically and without anyone’s help,” said Dr Hussein Abdiaziz Fathi, director of the Syrian hospital in Mogadishu.

Dr Hussein confirmed that he will formally use the device at their hospital to assist patients in need of respiratory machines.

The world’s need for ventilators has increased to unprecedented levels, since the pandemic, similarly, the need for ventilator is high in Somalia due to a series of COVID-19 outbreaks in country killing 31 people.