Ahead Of The Curve

A doctor and her colleagues at a Joburg hospital created a shield to protect themselves and patients against Covid-19

- Joy Mphande

The doctor and her team scrambled into action soon after news broke that a deadly new virus was spreading through China, leaving corpses and chaos in its wake.

It’s only a matter of time before it reaches us, she figured – and if we aren’t prepared, we’re going to be in big, big trouble.

Professor Feroza Motara started doing her homework. Gloves and masks were needed to keep healthcare workers safe as they battled to save the sick – but there wouldn’t be enough to go around if the virus really took hold.

So she and her team of boffins developed a new weapon in the arsenal against Covid-19: a deceptively simple see-through box, which will protect doctors and nurses on the frontline.

The Intubox is a clear plexiglass box that fits over a patient’s head and chest. It has openings to allow doctors to intubate and extubate coronavirus patients in other words, inserting a tube down a sedated patient’s throat to give them oxygen and later removing it. And it shields doctors and nurses from the virus if the patient coughs or gags during the procedure.

The 55-year-old professor is the academic head of emergency medicine at the faculty of health sciences at Wits University and head of the emergency department at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.

She and colleagues Prof Abdullah Laher (39), Dr Muhammed Moolla (39) and Dr Jana du Plessis (32) began looking at ways to protect their staff from the virus as soon as news of its existence began.