Africa has always been a continent of consumers for hundreds if not thousands of years. But now the Continent is awakening to the fact that they can’t rely on other Continents like Europe, Asia and America for survival in some difficult situation, and thus goes the old adage of survival for the fittest or necessity is the mother of invention has come to play.
Before Covid-19 all surgical masks and sanitize-rs were imported from China, till all the Commercial planes were grounded and it became imperatively impossible for products to be shipped from China to other Countries.
This awakening created the need for local innovators to look for alternatives to produce the much needed Personal Protective gears like face masks and sanitize-rs which are needed to protect the masses from getting infected by the deadly corona virus which has brought the world economy to a standstill.
With very minimal supplies and a surging demand, some innovators took the opportunity to invent ways of manufacturing the products locally.
Kitui Masks 2 -Courtesy
The first in line was the Kitui Governor Madam Charity Ngilu, who started to manufacture face masks using locally manufactured products and within weeks, Kitui became a hub for producing face masks and started selling to the National Government and to other counties.
Rumors has it that Kitui County is now exporting face masks to other Countries within the East African Region.
Kitui Masks
Then second, Kenyatta University students innovated a ventilator and started testing it on patients in ICUs which worked pretty good but still needed some improvements which they currently working on.
Ventilators manufactured at Kenyatta University
The Republic of Rwanda is also not left out on this innovation as they are also on toes to manufacture face masks and other commonly used items in the Hospitals to prevent infection.
Its touted that in a few years Africa will start making it’s own products for use and save billions of dollars which can be used locally to improve infrastructure and other technological fields to improve the livelihoods of its people.
Governor Ngilu distributes masks
