NIPER-Guwahati designs innovative 3D products to fight COVID-19

National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research – Guwahati (NIPER-G) have come out with two products of help in the fight against the  pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 .

The first product is a 3D-printed hands-free object that could be used to help open or close doors, windows, drawers (both vertical and horizontal), and refrigerator handle, or press elevator buttons, and laptop/desktop keyboards, including turning the switch buttons on/off. The researchers came up with the design for the fabrication of the 3D-printed object after detailed analyses of several resources for risk measurement and on how viruses spread through bare hands. The face shield is also easy to design and it is possible to have rapid development of prototypes. It is also low cost, easy to wear, has good chemical stability, non-fragile and is easy to clean with the existing sanitizers or any alcoholic disinfectant.

The second product is a 3D-printed antimicrobial face-shield to control the spread of novel coronavirus. It was designed after a thorough study to understand how viruses spread through oral, ophthalmic, olfactory and other body cavities

NIPERs are Centres of Excellence institutes of  under the  Department of Pharmaceutical, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. The seven institutes are functional at Ahmadabad, Hyderabad, Hajipur, Kolkata, Guwahati, Mohali, and Raebareli.

A meeting was held   through video conferencing  yesterday under the chairmanship of Dr P D Vaghela, Secretary, Pharmaceuticals new delhi to review NIPERS performance in research & innovation activities especially with regard to the ways in which NIPERs have and can contribute in country’s fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

All the directors and chairman took part in the meeting, , Dr. U.S.N Murty, Director, NIPER-Guwahati,informed   that   NIPER-G endeavored to help the country in fighting coronavirus through quick validated prototype/product development and deployment. “NIPER-G is committed to provide useful contributions cum solutions”.He said that NIPER –G has also made a skin friendly herbal sanitizer. He informed that industrial scale manufacturing of  its new products are being done in collaboration with Hindustan Antibiotics Limited ,( HAL) a departmental PSU.

Doors, windows, switch buttons, elevator buttons, drawers handle, refrigerator handle, and laptop/desktop keyboards are some of the most germ-infested objects in houses, hospitals, factories, companies, institutes, organizations, and other buildings. In this current situation of pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, this aspect may play a key role in transmitting infection from one person to another through bare hand contacts or contaminated surface source.