South Africa produces its first ventilators to fight COVID-19
WENDELL ROELF THE first of thousands of South African-designed ventilators rolled off a Cape Town assembly line on Friday, responding to requests from hospitals needing them for severe COVID-19 cases but unable to get them on global markets, officials said. Poorly resourced hospitals across Africa, which is nearing a million cases of COVID-19 -- more than half of them in South Africa -- have struggled to cope with a burgeoning caseload amid a global scramble favouring richer nations in procuring ventilators and protective gear. South Africa, which now has the world's fifth highest infection burden of around 482,169 confirmed cases,…