ADDIS ABABA: As the coronavirus epidemic gains a foothold in Ethiopia, Habtamu Kehali’s skills in operating a ventilator may, for increasing numbers of patients, mean the difference between life and death.

As the country’s only respiratory therapist, Kehali is rushing to train others to run the machines used to keep severely ill Covid-19 patients breathing.

“We only have few patients who are under intensive (coronavirus) care but if the number is going to increase there is a risk that we might see mismanagement of ventilators,” he said.

“The patient might be exposed to side-effects such as infection and die.” Ethiopia has 250 confirmed cases of the disease, a tally that has almost doubled over the past eight days, with five fatalities.

The World Health Organisation says around 5pc of Covid-19 infections are severe enough to require intensive care and mechanical ventilation.

Health Minister Lia Tadesse said that Ethiopia had 435 ventilators and planned to buy more, and that around 800 health professionals could operate them.

However, Habtamu said only very few had the necessary specialist skills. Ethiopia had only 12 students on the country’s first course for the entry-level qualification of respiratory technician being supervised by him, he added.

Dr Jannicke Mellin-Olsen, president of the London-based World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, said doctors and nurses could easily give oxygen to patients using masks or nasal tubes.

But sedating and intubating them — putting tubes into their windpipes to push air from a ventilator into their lungs — was far trickier, “particularly for Covid patients because they have so many pathological changes in their lungs,” she told Reuters.

“We can see that there is a significant gap in the clinical application of these machines ...We are trying to narrow that gap.” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2020