Balkan Tech Enthusiasts Deploy 3D Printers against COVID-19

"We needed help to quickly make enough visors, this was our main mission," said GP Nenad Lazarov, one of the initiators of the Facebook group '3D Print Medical Equipment'. "People are doing this wholeheartedly."

Like the rest of Europe, in cash-strapped Balkan countries - where health services have long suffered with meagre budgets and equipment shortages - technology is coming to the rescue of doctors and nurses on the frontline of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Of around 300 confirmed cases in North Macedonia, more than 10 per cent are medical workers who contracted the disease while treating patients.

'3D Print Medical Equipment' now has more than 18,000 members, some who own 3D printers producing the visors, others offering equipment parts or their time and transport to distribute the finished product. The group's administrators coordinate the entire effort.

"You should be aware that with every contribution you make, you literally save lives," orthopedic surgeon Aleksandar Karevski, one of the founders of the initiative, posted on the group's profile.

Efforts replicated across Balkan region

 3D-printed visor parts. Photo: Aleksandar Karevski/3D Print Medical Equipment

The idea of 3D printing protective visors, which protect health workers from contracting the virus via their eyes, first originated in the Czech Republic. 

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Start-up.ro reported last week that engineers, doctors and managers from the tech sector in Timisoara have teamed up to produce ventilators from 3D printed parts that would be used by hospitals in the fight against the novel coronavirus. The project, named "VentilaTM", is currently prototyping a first version of the...