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During these unprecedented times, Asir Gov. Prince Turki bin Talal bin Abdulaziz commended King Khalid University's response to the COVID-19 crisis by addressing the acute need for personal protective equipment (PPE). HRH Prince Turki also leads the Asir COVID-19 Crisis Management Room, which serves to provide the research, experts and resources to help the fight against COVID-19. He noted that the "Manufacturing and Developing Health Protection Products Project" is noteworthy in that it has the capacity to react to the critical need for PPE in the Asir region. Through the use of 3D printers, spare ventilator parts and other critical PPE equipment will be distributed at a much faster rate.

After his introductory remarks, HRH Prince Turki inaugurated the project, noting that it is supervised by the College of Engineering in participation with the Ministry of Interior, Asir's Health Affairs Directorate, and the Asir Municipality. The project aims to achieve two strategic goals with the first goal being to provide health services, awareness, and preventive care. The second goal is to reduce the economic impact on employers and employees. One of the main themes of the project is to localize the required modern manufacturing methods within the "Neshama Asir" initiative with diverse resources to bear on problems through project-based learning/discovery. 15,000 health protection products and ventilator spare parts are currently in production by students who participated after taking intense training courses. It was highlighted that opportunities have been created in which a large number of students will be trained in production and manufacturing.