Sunday, April 5, 2020

Making of Low Cost Ventilator

Chairman of the Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra announced on Twitter that its specialised team at its Igatpuri and Mumbai plants have responded to the occasion and developed the first ventilator prototype in under 48 hours. "Anand Mahindra also tweeted that these medical ventilators developed by the team at Mahindra would cost under Rs 7,500, whereas other dedicated systems cost anywhere between Rs 5-10 lakh." This news was published on March 26, 2020. [1]
Yesterday's ToI carried an article where Dr Rajeev Chauhan, Assistant Professor at PGIMER said that the device claimed by Mahindra team was originally developed by PGIMER and IISc together from their one year effort and they have applied for 𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕. With the spread of the pandemic, they began talks with Mahindra group for large scale production. Dr Chauhan further said that representatives from the business house took details of his invention and 48 hours later introduced the ambu bag as their own product. Mahindra spokesperson denied this saying that they had in fact developed their product following 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 designs from a variety of sources. [2]
The BBC article, dated 1st April, titled, "Covid-19: The race to build coronavirus ventilators" starts with "The world needs more ventilators – but scaling up production is more complex than it seems. Around the world, thousands of volunteers are working hard to fill the gaps." The article continues, "In terms of their core function, ventilators are not extraordinarily complicated machines. Basically, they are sophisticated pumps ... So why are they so difficult to design? Because it isn’t their function that is difficult. It’s that they have to operate in an extremely reliable way in a high-stakes environment." [3]
Of various 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 initiatives, the MIT News of March 26 shares an article titled, "MIT-based team works on rapid deployment of 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆, low-cost ventilator". ln this, "Clinical and design considerations will be published online; goal is to support rapid scale-up of device production to alleviate hospital shortages." The material cost is estimated to be USD 450 (~ Rs. 35000) instead of USD 30000 for standard ones. The article, continues, "The key to the simple, inexpensive ventilator alternative is a hand-operated plastic pouch called a bag-valve resuscitator, or Ambu bag. A tube is inserted into the patient’s airway, as with a hospital ventilator, but then the pumping of air into the lungs is done by squeezing and releasing the flexible pouch. This is a task for skilled personnel, trained in how to evaluate the patient and adjust the timing and pressure of the pumping accordingly." [4]
MIT has come up with a dedicated website for this 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 project and is releasing information as and when it reaches a particular benchmark. The key ventilation specifications to be achieved by this low cost device is non-trivial. It is not just pumping a fixed volume at a fixed rate. Other than spec., hardware and software design details are being populated there (free registration). The download section as of now says, "𝐖𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧, 𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭." Between March 20 and April 01, MIT team has conducted 4 testing; the first one was a comparative study on animal with their first version of the prototype against Medtronic's PB 840 ventilator system. [5]
Meanwhile, TechCrunch in its 31st March article titled, "Medtronic is sharing its portable ventilator design specifications and code for free to all" has Medtronic spokesperson saying, “We are sharing the design specifications for the [PB 560] to enable participants across industries to evaluate options for rapid ventilator manufacturing to help doctors and patients dealing with COVID-19.” It’s worth noting that Medtronic 𝒊𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏-𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈 the PB 560’s design exactly: it’s issuing a special “𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆” specifically for the purposes of addressing this global coronavirus pandemic, and 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧 (𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐂) 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. [6]

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