Personal Respirators deployed to Ethiopia during COVID-19 pandemic

In response to the Ethiopian Embassy in the UK’s urgent appeal to combat the spread of the Coronavirus in Ethiopia, the Ethio-American Doctors Group (EADG) jointly with the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C mobilised a donation of £40,781 to procure lifesaving medical equipment.  A major part of the shipment was 135 PeRSo (Personal Respirator Southampton) powered air purifying respirators with 285 hoods to be deployed to authorities in Ethiopia.

Taken during the official handover ceremony in Southampton, the photo above shows (from left to right) Dr Liku Tezera, University of Southampton, Mr Ababi Demissie (Amb.), Charge d’Affaires of Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in the UK and Dr Yonas Cherenet, EADG’s-EU representative.

Dr. Liku Tezera , a member of Global-NAMRIP and part of the PeRSo-DW (Developing World) team, played a key role in creating a cooperation network with the Ethiopian COVID-19 aid initiative and PeRSo-DW. The PeRSo-DW project aims to enable manufacture of PeRSo devices in resource poor settings so that personal respirators can be made more widely available by local manufacturers to healthcare professionals in as many parts of the world as possible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many Global-NAMRIP members have contributed to the PeRSo-DW project including Dr. Diana Garay-Baquero who has been supporting external contacts & partnerships and oversees web content & communications.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the PeRSo-DW team: Antonio De Grazia, Alex Dickinson, Laura Diment, Paul Elkington, Diana Garay-Baquero, Ric Gillams, Alexandra Mant, David Marshall, Mark Mavrogordato, Roel Mingels, Hywel Morgan, Philippa Reed, Constantinos Regas, Sebastian Rosini, Clint Styles and Liku Tezera.