3D Printing Pilot Targets Prosthetic Socket Production in The Gambia

British charity STAND has begun a pilot program in The Gambia that applies 3D scanning and printing to the production of prosthetic sockets, the custom-made part that joins an amputee’s residual limb to an artificial leg. The initiative, co-financed by the European Union, is intended to test whether digital fabrication can offer a quicker, simpler, and more precise alternative to conventional manufacturing methods.

Precision is central to the problem the project addresses. In traditional socket-making, a deviation of just one millimetre can result in discomfort severe enough that patients stop wearing their prosthesis altogether. The digital workflow is designed to cut out that margin of human error, while also lowering the cost of each leg, shortening production times, and eliminating the hazardous chemicals that prosthetists would otherwise handle.

Across Africa, millions of amputees currently lack access to prosthetic legs. Should the trial prove effective, the model could be extended to rural areas of The Gambia and, potentially, to other countries on the continent and beyond.

The Partners Behind the Project

The pilot draws on a consortium of institutions spanning three continents. The Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG), which operates as part of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, will house the 3D printers and handle fabrication. Patient fittings will be carried out by specialist prosthetists from The Gambia’s National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC), a clinical facility under the Department of Social Welfare. The European Union is co-funding the effort as one strand of a broader regional programme covering rehabilitation services, mobility aids, livelihoods, and psychosocial support.

Two further organisations provide technical backing: the University of Southampton, whose ‘People Powered Prosthetics’ research group contributes academic and ethical oversight, and 3D Lab at Radboud UMC in the Netherlands, which supplies AI-driven CAD software for socket design along with training for local teams.

Martin Norman, Deputy High Commissioner at the British High Commission Banjul, said: “This innovative partnership shows how UK-supported expertise, combined with local leadership in The Gambia, can deliver practical solutions that improve lives. Harnessing cutting-edge 3D printing technology presents an opportunity to expand access to high-quality prosthetic care and ensure more people can regain their mobility, independence and dignity, improving outcomes for patients across The Gambia.”

From Pilot to Scalable Model

Beyond fitting individual patients with bespoke sockets, STAND and its partners are running a parallel study to assess how the approach could be replicated at scale. The envisioned workflow would allow clinicians to travel to remote villages, scan a patient’s limb on location, send the data to a central hub for printing, and then deliver the finished leg back to the amputee, removing the need for rural patients to make repeated journeys to urban clinics.

Tom Williams OBE, founder of STAND, said: “This is an exciting development compared to STAND’s usual operations in The Gambia. The project not only empowers Gambians to manufacture their own high-quality components, but it also harnesses mobile scanning technology to bring life-changing care directly to rural amputees.”

Closing the Prosthetics Access Gap Through Digital Fabrication

STAND has historically focused on recycling donated prosthetic legs and channelling them to rehabilitation partners in sub-Saharan Africa. The Gambian pilot shifts that model toward local, digital manufacturing, targeting the gap that keeps millions of African amputees without artificial limbs: too few prosthetists, slow fabrication, and the cost and travel burden on rural patients. By pairing mobile scanning with centralized printing, production stays in-country while care travels to the patient.

The approach builds on more than a decade of experimentation. As early as 2015, startup 3D LifePrints worked with PCEA Kikuyu orthopedic hospital in Kenya to fit its first ten patients with low-cost 3D printed prosthetic hands and lifelike leg covers, each produced for under $50, devices whose creation combined inexpensive consumer scanners with free scanning software and international design collaboration.

Closer to the Gambian project is the ‘V3D’ socket, designed by a TU Delft mechanical engineering student in 2021 to be printed on a standard desktop FDM machine for roughly €30 in about four hours. The design went to Radboud University Medical Center, whose 3D Lab is now supplying software and training to the STAND pilot, for development with amputees in the Netherlands and Sierra Leone, replacing plaster molding processes that can stretch to five weeks.

The pattern is consistent: digital workflows keep proving cheaper and faster than plaster. The Gambia pilot now tests whether they can also scale. If it works, the solution travels well beyond one country.

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Featured image shows STAND has begun a pilot program that applies 3D scanning and printing to the production of prosthetic sockets. Photo via STAND.