The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has begun producing Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and three-layered masks at its Supply and Service Battalion, Saboli, to cater to the requirements at its quarantine centres.
While the PPE will cost Rs 100 each, the mask will come for just Rs 5. The design and quality have been shown to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and NITRA (Northern India Textile Research Association) and the same have been approved for quarantine centre management professionals and other related staff involved in screening of patients, officials said.
“ITBP is manufacturing preparing PPEs at its SS Battalion Centre, Saboli. With PPE for Rs 100 and 3-layer masks for Rs 5 only, this products are cheapest in comparison with those available in the market without compromising with quality,” said ITBP Spokesperson Vivek Pandey.
The requirement for manufacturing the PPEs was felt as the ITBP was running the Quarantine Centre at Chhawla where evacuees from Wihan, China and those from Italy were being put in quarantine and isolation wards, Pandey said. Further, the doctors in the quarantine centre projected difficulties in getting adequate quantity of PPEs, an official said.
Pandey himself sought a sample from the quarantine centre looked around for sourcing the fabric to manufacture the PPEs. The fabric was sourced from a factory in Bawana in the national capital.
The first design was a separate gown, trousers, shoe covers, head cover and triple layered mask.
Then on the suggestion of medical officials, the ITBP centre at Saboli fabricated the overall gown with integrated head cover, zippered front and separate shoe cover and mask.
While the idea was conceptualised by ITBP Second-in- Command and spokesperson Vivek Pandey, fabrication design was actualised by Inspector Tailor Ravi and Head Constbale Tailor Baru Singh. “We can produce around 200 PPEs and 500 masks in a day. These have been cleared for management authorities, screening and other professionals. However, these will not be used inside the Covid-19 patient wards,” Pandey said.
The idea behind the in-house production of these personal protection gears is to provide cheap and safe PPEs to second line health and administration personnel working at Quarantine centre and Unit Hospitals, the spokesperson added.