THE Vice-Chancellor, Technical University, Ibadan, Prof. Ayobami Salami, has said the institution is on the verge of producing ventilator to support Oyo State government in its fight against novel Coronavirus in the state. Prof. Ayobami disclosed this while presenting renewable face masks produced by the institution as support to the government in the prevention of COVID-19 spread, to government officials at the Ministry of Health, Secretariat, Ibadan.

He hinted that the institution came up with the production and donation of face masks to the state government due to its scarcity across the globe and economic challenge attached to the disposable ones. Prof. Ayobami affirmed that the ongoing pandemic in the country deserves relevant contributions from stakeholders to contain the spread of the disease.

He said: “The role of the university is to be relevant to the society. We decided to look at areas we can be of help in supporting the efforts of the government in this pandemic. The issue has become a major challenge not only in Oyo State, nationally but globally. How many Nigerians can afford to spend two to three hundred naira per day on a face mask? “We decided to look at how we can resolve this challenge and challenged our technical vocational and entrepreneurship training unit to begin to produce the useable and washable face mask. We are already doing this and we want to start by making some donations to the government and make available to the public to place order.”

As am talking to you now, we are even working on producing a ventilator, our researchers, our academia are working on producing ventilator for the university.”

Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Basiru Bello, while receiving the face masks on behalf of the state government, commended the management team of the university for the support given to the emergency operation centre of COVID-19.

Dr. Bello, thereafter, thanked the institution for the donation and promised to make use of the item as expected.