Hyderabad: City siblings make unique face shields

Hyderabad: Two sisters from the city, Pooja and Purvi, are doing their part in the fight to contain the spread of coronavirus. They have designed an innovative face shield and are distributing them to frontline warriors against Covid, such as doctors and police, for free.

The sisters are from Ramkote and both are graduates. The elder sister Pooja Kabra is a MBA and the younger one Purvi Rathi an architect. They made a face shield from medium density fibre (MDF) and overhead projector (OHP) sheet which has 100 microns thickness. The face shield will provide additional shield apart from masks especially for the people in containing the corona, said Purvi Kabra.

The face shield would help doctors and police personnel as they face the maximum risk as they come in contact with people while on duty. Purvi said that they have prepared face shields with two types of material – one with fibre shield and another with acrylic material. The OHP sheet is connected to the material. They used Auto Cad software to design the shields. The face shields can be used for a period of six months and can be washed with sanitisers. A face shield will work like a helmet as it provides extra protection, said Purvi.

Pooja said that they have so far prepared over 5,000 face shields and donated all to the different hospitals, police stations etc. She said that the response from these sections was encouraging as they were asking for more for their staff. She said they are giving these shields for free because they want to contribute in the fight against corona.

Both the sisters said that they can only make 500 face shields per day with their limited resources, with financial help from their father Ram Kishore Rathi, a businessman. "If the demand increases we may need support from the government like logistics for MDF and OHPs. It takes four hours to prepare 100 shields," explains Purvi. She added that the police sought 10,000 face shields but they could not meet the need because of lack of resources.