Day 8: Leveraging Open Hardware to Alleviate the Burden of COVID-19 on Global Health Systems

Published by Access 2 Perspectives on March 24, 2020March 24, 2020

Maia Chagas, A.; Molloy, J.; Prieto Godino, L.; Baden, T. Leveraging Open Hardware to Alleviate the Burden of COVID-19 on Global Health Systems. Preprints2020, 2020030362 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202003.0362.v1).

Abstract

With the current rapid spread of COVID-19, global health systems are increasingly overburdened by the sheer number of people that need diagnosis, isolation and treatment. Shortcomings are evident across the board, from staffing, facilities for rapid and reliable testing to availability of hospital beds and key medical-grade equipment. The scale and breadth of the problem calls for an equally substantive response not only from frontline workers such as medical staff and scientists, but from skilled members of the public who have the time, facilities and knowledge to meaningfully contribute to a consolidated global response. Here, we summarise community-driven approaches based on Free and Open Source scientific and medical Hardware (FOSH) currently being developed and deployed to bolster access to personal protective equipment (PPE), patient treatment and diagnostics.