Washington: An Indian-American couple in the United States has developed a low-cost portable emergency ventilator. The ventilator is soon to hit the production stage. It will be available in India and the developing world at an affordable rate. The machine will help doctors deal with the COVID-19 patients.
Important development
Prompted by the lack of adequate ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic, Devesh Ranjan and his wife Kumuda Ranjan developed the ventilator. Devesh is a professor and associate chair in the prestigious Georgia Tech’s George W Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. His wife Kumuda Ranjan is a practising family physician in Atlanta. The two developed the emergency ventilator from concept to prototype in just three weeks.
“If you can do a manufacturing of scale, it can be produced (item cost) in less than USD 100. Even with a price point of USD 500, they (the manufacturer) would be making enough profit,” Devesh stated Monday. He said a ventilator of this type, on an average in the US, costs USD 10,000. Devesh however, clarified that theirs was not an ICU ventilator, which is more sophisticated and costs more.
Low-cost machine can save human lives
This Open-AirVentGT has been developed to address acute respiratory distress syndrome. It is a common complication for COVID-19 patients. The malady causes lungs to stiffen, requiring their breathing to be assisted by ventilators, Devesh informed.
The ventilator uses electronic sensors and computer control to manage key clinical parameters such as respiration rate. It also helps regulate tidal volume, inspiration and expiration ratio, and pressure on the lungs.
Crucial in fight against coronavirus
“The whole goal of this project was to make a low cost makeshift ventilator that gives those controls to the physician,” Kumuda informed. She pointed out that soon there is going to be a global shortage of ventilator given the massive spread of coronavirus. The virus has killed more than 3,45,000 people globally and infected over 5.4 million.
In the United States till Monday, more than 98,000 Americans had died and nearly 1.7 million had tested positive. Scientists are racing against time to develop a vaccine or come out with a therapeutic treatment.
Manufacturing hub
Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Ranjan earned his degree in engineering from Regional Engineering College, Trichy. Then he came to the US. He followed by getting his Masters and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been teaching at Georgia Tech for the last six years. Kumuda moved with her parents to the US from Ranchi when she was six. She did her medical training and residency in New Jersey.
Both Ranjan and Kumuda said that India had the potential to become a global manufacturing hub of low cost ventilators. Then it can export ventilators across the world at a rate that is affordable to all.
Agencies