Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA) - Bali's state-run Udayana University (Unud) donated several thousand hand sanitizer bottles it had produced to villages around Indonesia's popular resort island to contribute to the nation's fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

"These hand sanitizer bottles are produced by members of the forensics laboratory team at the Department of Pharmacy of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences," Head of Unud's Community Service Agency (LPPM), Prof. I Gde Rai Maya Temaja, stated on Friday.

Unud has produced 1,700 half-liter hand sanitizer bottles; 850 one-liter bottles; and 170 bottles of 20 liters each under its COVID-19 mitigatory efforts. Ungasan, Pecatu, and Jimbaran are among the recipient villages, Temaja noted in a statement.

As part of its participatory efforts in the battle against COVID-19, the Unud rectorate, through the LPPM office, dispatched 3,857 students to several villages to conduct a field study and community service (KKN) from July 11 to Aug 23, 2020.

During that period, the students were actively involved in edifying villagers on the significance of applying preventive measures as mandated by the government's health protocols to halt the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak among villagers.

Prior to the deployment of its students in villages, Unud had earlier formed a COVID-19 task force whose personnel disseminated information on health protocols to the university's academic community members, he stated.

Coronavirus infections initially arose in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, while the Indonesian government officially declared the country's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020.

As of Thursday, Indonesia had recorded the addition of 3,622 new confirmed cases, thereby bringing the total tally to 184,268. Of the total patients, 132,055 recovered completely, while 7,750 succumbed to the deadly virus.

The Indonesian government has been supporting research and innovation projects to help the nation battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Several leading universities in Indonesia have joined in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and made concrete contributions through efforts to salvage lives, right from developing much-needed devices to research on COVID-19 treatment.

A shining example is the development of a ventilator called COVENT-20 for COVID-19 sufferers developed by a team of scientists from the faculties of medicine and engineering at the University of Indonesia (UI).

As published on UI's official website, the Indonesian Health Ministry announced that the ventilator had cleared human clinical trials.

Another notable contribution came from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) that had collaborated with the Pembina Masjid Salman Foundation and Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University (UNPAD) to develop a ventilator for COVID-19 patients. Related news: 33 charged with hoarding masks, hand sanitizers
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