COLOMBO, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Health Ministry has launched the country's first ever 3D printing unit to design and produce artificial body parts in the island country, local media reports said here Wednesday.
The unit was opened at the Colombo National Hospital by Minister of Health, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne.
The 3D unit includes state of the art technology introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and in addition to the artificial limbs and other body parts, the 3D printer can also design and manufacture other medical equipment.
The Health Ministry in a statement said that until the installation of this new unit, all artificial body parts in the national hospital were made using a plaster of Paris mould since 1950.
Earlier, it took over three weeks to get the required artificial body parts manufactured, but with the new 3D printer it will take only four hours to design and produce an artificial body part, the statement said.
The Health Ministry said that except for the scanner in this new 3D printing unit, all other units of the printer have been manufactured in Sri Lanka.
