Vietnam makes Covid-19 patient assisting robot

The Vietnam Military Technical Academy under the Ministry of Defense has successfully manufactured a robot that can support health workers to take care of Covid-19 patients, VnExpress reported.

Vietnam successfully produces Covid-19 patient assisting robot. Photo: VNE

The robot, called Vibot-1a, was first piloted on April 7 in Hanoi’s Bac Thang Long Hospital, which is sheltering quarantined people patients. Here, it dispenses medicine for patients instead nurses.

Not only that, it could say "thank you" and "wish" the patients to quickly recover. While moving from one place to another, the robot automatically plays songs to cheer up people in pandemic prevention.

Colonel Tang Quoc Nam from the Military Technical Academy, head of the project, said that the robot was designed with a loading capacity of up to 100kg to automatically take food, medicine, necessities to patients’ rooms, and remove medical wastes and dirty clothes. It can also serve as a messenger, facilitating communication between health workers and patients.

Nam added that the robot could deliver voice and video messages with excellent quality to help physicians talk to patients on their evolution, give them advice and encouragement.

Do Quang Thuan, director of Bac Thang Long Hospital, appreciated the robot’s features as when performing the task, it can replace three or five health workers.

Putting Vibot-1a into use not only helps reduce the risk of infection, but also creates conditions for health workers to focus their time and effort to treat critically-ill patients, Thuan said.

A team of experts set up by the Minister of Science and Technology on March 7 held a meeting for preliminary evaluation of Vibot-1a robot and requested the Ministry of Health to use the robot in quarantine centers.

As of April 8, Vietnam has recorded 251 cases of Covid-19, 122 of them have been cured and discharged from hospital.