A ventilator that costs less, and is locally made

Prof. Justin Jonas

Medical ventilators have been central to the narrative of COVID-19 across the world. But, thanks to social media, the plague of misinformation that has become synonymous with the pandemic has turned the technology into a villain: you get COVID-19, you go into hospital, they put you on a ventilator, the ventilator kills you. For scientist, technologist, and leader of the South African government-sponsored National Ventilator Project (NVP), Professor Justin Jonas, this is not true. When the South African government tasked Justin and his team with developing a ventilator, they responded by engineering an appropriate, locally manufactured solution.

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Justin provides technical direction and oversight for all activities undertaken by SKA South Africa, through interaction with scientists, engineers, technicians, and programme managers. Areas of influence include telescopes and associated instruments, sites and infrastructure to support these, and the training of engineers and technicians to build and operate them.