The Humane Emergency Use Canopies and Accessories (HEUCA) tent, a reimagined tent to keep Ebola-fighting medical workers cooler and safer. This is one of the innovations being developed by the ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) and the Makerere University School of Public Health Team. The team comprises of 16 multi-disciplinary co-creators including students and faculty. This idea was born out of a USAID initiative that involved collaboration with other stakeholders to implement the ‘Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development’. In response to this, four ideas were submitted to the USAID Challenge and the Re-imagined Ebola Treatment Units made it to the final stage of the challenge.« Read More »

The redesigned tent addresses the difficulties in both treating and preventing Ebola and similar highly pathogenic diseases. As medical workers treated thousands of Ebola cases in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, a consistent challenge was the stifling heat from the ambient environment in the Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs). Because of this, health care workers could only stay in treatment tents for an hour, thereby affecting patient contact time and quality of care. Patients too faced dehydration from the extreme heat in these structures. Short stay times coupled with repeated entry and exit into the ETU were also associated with higher risk of risk of contracting the Ebola virus from frequent donning and doffing. ETUs and similar service delivery environments for displaced persons can be extremely uncomfortable in hot, humid climates. One of the key causes of this is the design of current tents. « Read More »