Tunisia hopes novel methods will aid virus fight

The feared impact of coronavirus on Tunisia's fragile public health system has provoked a flurry of innovation from robotics to digitalisation efforts to bolster the North African country's pandemic response.

The government has even turned to students for help, asking the engineering school in Sousse, south of the capital Tunis, to task its students with designing a locally made ventilator as their end-of-year project.

Ventilators are crucial for treating critically ill Covid-19 patients, but as in many countries, Tunisia's poorly equipped hospitals lack sufficient numbers of the devices.