3D printing speeds up prosthetics for Syria’s wounded

Prosthetics centers in northwest Syria have begun using 3D printing to produce custom limbs for amputees, offering a partial answer to a shortage of prosthetics capacity in a country where nearly three million people have been wounded since the conflict began in 2011. Two centers in Idlib province now rely entirely on the technology and together serve between 100 and 150 patients a month, while four more centers are partially operational and building toward full adoption.

The scale of the need is stark. Syria has roughly 86,000 amputees, according to figures cited by Dr. Waddah Ghazi al Khatib, director of the Directorate of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Syria’s Ministry of Health, and many have been unable to access prosthetics or ongoing rehabilitation care at all. Al Khatib s