20 Apr 2020

The University of Botswana (UB)will welcome any innovative idea even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vice chancellor, Professor David Norris, said this during a press briefing today (April 20). He also explained how the institution was responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Norris said they had previously engaged indegenous knowledge research. He said the pandemic had shown that self-reliance was critical.

As part of their mandate, Professor Norris said they were also at the centre of the nation’s development agenda. He said they were undergoing a transformational trajectory and research was their priority.

In addition, Prof. Norris said the UB was providing clinical and psycho-social care to those who were ill and in quarantine.

Dean of the faculty of medicine at the institution, Professor Doreen Masire, explained that the level of preparedness at the Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital was impressive.

As the biggest isolation centre locally, Professor Masire said as a state of the art hospital, the intensive care unit was also up to the required standards with 36 beds at the ICU.

For his part, dean of the faculty of engineering and technology, Professor Benjamin Bolaane, said they were managing the impact of the virus through collaboration with some stakeholders in the technological field.

He explained they were currently developing a dashboard that had live tracking and geographical distribution of cases. He added that they were developing several prototypes of devices and were in the final stages before production. Ends