Giving a right arm

A campaign by Handicap International France was held in Paris last week to raise awareness about the plight of thousands of amputees worldwide in need of a prosthesis. As a part of its #BodyCan’tWait programme, the charity fixed prosthetic limbs made by 3D printers on some of the city’s statues. The organisation has given 19 people resin-based “printed” limbs in Togo, Syria and Madagascar, and will soon provide them to more than 100 people in India. It says that roughly 100 million people around the world need artificial limbs. “We want to take this to the next level, bringing them to more countries and equipping more people,” Xavier de Crest, head of Handicap International France, told AFP. He defended the charity’s push for devices made with 3D printers despite their higher price tag, saying they were easier to produce, especially in developing countries. “Before 3D printing, you had to make a plaster cast of the stump, adjust it four or five times, encase it in resin, things that required trained professionals and lots of equipment,” he said. “Now a tiny scanner can analyse the stump and transfer the measurements to modelling software, then to a 3D printer. You save time and it’s more practical, especially when we’re working in a conflict zone like Syria.” he said. Picture shows the statue of Alexandre Combattant, at Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, fitted with a prosthetic arm.