Researchers at IISER develop low-cost ventilator
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, have developed a low-cost mechanical ventilator —a hybrid version of a ventilator developed in US and Italy — to bridge the demand-supply gap owing to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Developing cheap ventilators is important as per a recent paper by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy that has estimated that India has approximately 1.9 million hospitals beds, 95,000 ICU beds and 48,000 ventilators. Most beds and ventilators are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Kerala.
“Critical Covid patients need a ventilator that is slightly more advanced in terms of features and usability,” said Umakant D Rapol, associate professor, physics department, IISER.
“We have kept the ventilator simple yet efficient by incorporating design requirements and almost all functionalities that a doctor requires to treat patients,” he added
Stating that the prototype costs between ~30,000-40,000, Sunil Nair, associate professor, physics department, IISER, said it has been tested for about half a million cycles in the laboratory.
Having zeroed in on the two designs — Mechanical Ventilator Milano and another one by the University of Florida— the team comprising professors, a technical officer along with two former students started building the prototype on April 2.
“We ended up designing a version, which meets most of the specifications of the US and Italian models,” said Rapol.