Workers produce disinfection gates in a factory in Cairo, Egypt, on May 4, 2020. Inside a spacious plant of a military-run company in the Egyptian capital Cairo, workers are busy producing sterilization cabins and negative-pressure isolation rooms for the country's battle against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

 Inside a spacious plant of a military-run company in the Egyptian capital Cairo, workers are busy producing sterilization cabins and negative-pressure isolation rooms for the country's battle against COVID-19.

The Arab-British Dynamics Company (ABD), which belongs to Egypt's military-run Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI), started in early May the initial production of sterilization cabins to prevent COVID-19 spread and of portable isolation rooms for treating coronavirus patients.

The AOI has 11 companies that are specialized in different fields of manufacture, of which the ABD is in charge of producing medical supplies and equipment.

"Amid the COVID-19 global crisis that involves Egypt, the ABD as a manufacturing arm of the state works on meeting the demands of the local market," ABD chairman Mohsen Abdel-Rahman told Xinhua.

Workers assemble adjustable hospital beds in a factory in Cairo, Egypt, on May 4, 2020. Inside a spacious plant of a military-run company in the Egyptian capital Cairo, workers are busy producing sterilization cabins and negative-pressure isolation rooms for the country's battle against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

 He noted that all the sterilization cabins and isolation rooms "are all created by Egyptian ideas, minds and hands."

Each of the newly produced isolation rooms is just like a mobile intensive care unit (ICU) that is equipped with everything for meeting the patient's needs, Abdel-Rahman said.

"We can produce from 2,000 to 3,000 isolation rooms per month. The price of any of our products is about 50 percent lower than that of the same imported product with the same quality," the company chief told Xinhua.

A woman works in a factory that produces medical supplies and sterilization equipment in Cairo, Egypt, on May 4, 2020. Inside a spacious plant of a military-run company in the Egyptian capital Cairo, workers are busy producing sterilization cabins and negative-pressure isolation rooms for the country's battle against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

 Abdel-Rahman pointed out that there are negotiations to export the new products to African and Gulf states while meeting the needs of the Egyptian local market.

On Saturday, the most populous Arab country reported 488 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total infections to 8,964, including 514 deaths and 2,002 recoveries.

With the growing number of infections, the newly produced portable ICU-like isolation rooms might be needed in case the government decides to build makeshift hospitals at schools, dormitories, stadiums or such facilities for isolating infected cases.

At one section of the ABD plant, workers were assembling white adjustable hospital beds as one of the main parts of the isolation rooms. All the workers were dressed in uniform and wearing face masks and gloves.

"The bed can be electronically adjusted in five positions by a remote control, such as raising or lowering the bed height, the headboard and the footboard," said Ramadan Younis, a 52-year-old supervisor who has been working for the ABD for over 25 years.

"We implement anti-coronavirus preventive measures such as keeping a distance between each two workers and wearing face masks and gloves. We are happy to be part of the country's frontlines like medics in fighting the novel coronavirus," Younis told Xinhua.

As for the sterilization cabins, which act as disinfection gates, each has a thermometer device in the first part to measure temperature and disinfectant sprayers in the second part to spray the disinfectant material.

The maximum time for a person to pass through the sterilization cabin is 10 seconds and the disinfectant is sprayed using the dry-fogging system for the first time in Egypt, which does not negatively affect the skin or the respiratory system as other cabins do.

People work in a factory that produces medical supplies and sterilization equipment in Cairo, Egypt, on May 4, 2020. Inside a spacious plant of a military-run company in the Egyptian capital Cairo, workers are busy producing sterilization cabins and negative-pressure isolation rooms for the country's battle against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

 Ayman Moussa, AOI chairman's advisor for medical technology, told Xinhua that the AOI started to manufacture the new products after consulting the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Higher Education, the Egyptian Drug Authority and the Unified Medical Procurement Authority to prioritize the urgently needed products to manufacture.

The military-run industrialization body also convened with experts in various fields and creative young people whose innovations haven't been brought to light to provide their ideas regarding the new products.

Manufacturing disinfection cabins and isolation rooms saves Egypt a lot of money, for the prices of their imported counterparts are more than double amid a price rise worldwide for such products due to the spread of COVID-19, said Moussa.

"While our products save money compared to the imported ones, their availability to meet the local needs is what matters the most. Availability is more important than saving money during the pandemic crisis," the AOI official said.