Set of low cost ventilators to help people in low income countries

New low-cost ventilator design invented during COVID-19 may address the global shortage of ventilators for other respiratory illnesses.

The ventilators needed by intensive care unit (ICU) patients who suffer from respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19, influenza and tuberculosis are easier and cheaper to manufacture than the ventilators currently available.

Currently, the creators of the design are promising technologies first developed for short-term emergency ventilators in response to the coronavirus pandemic to address the long-term shortage of mechanical ventilators in developing countries. Hope this helps.

In a new treaty published in Medical technology border, the researcher behind the “RELAVENT” ventilator (formerly known as JAM VENT) has demonstrated that this design meets all the performance requirements defined in ISO 80601, the international standard for intensive care ventilators. . The team also showed that the system works equally well with household oxygen concentrators, similar to the pressurized gas supply found in hospitals.

This document also describes the design of the prototype and details the rigorous testing required for regulatory approval. They follow the funding and the approval. Medical equipment, the ventilator can be used in low and middle income countries (LMICs) and emerging economies (NEEs) suffering from a long-term historic shortage of ventilators.

Dr Joseph van Battenberg Sherwood, Principal Investigator, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, said: In addition, most new ventilator designs created for COVID-19 are based on urgent, short-term manufacture of LMICs and NEEs. “

The next step towards approval as a medical device is the development of mass-produced medical devices from the advanced prototyping stage, which must be carried out under special regulatory conditions. To do this, they launched a startup known as Phaedrus World Medical Limited with two experienced medical technology entrepreneurs. They are currently looking for investment to turn their designs into usable fans.

Liz Hughes, CEO of Phaedrus World Medical Limited, said: Thanks to the efforts of an excellent team of engineers from Imperial College and the clinical contributions of medical advisors who have direct experience of the target market. “

The beauty of simplicity

Dr Jakob Mathiszig-Lee, co-author of Imperial’s Department of Surgery and Cancer, said: Other respiratory illnesses such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and influenza cause more deaths each year in LMICs and NEEs only in COVID-19. “

Dr van Batenburg-Sherwood said: This way we have made the technology much cheaper and less expensive to manufacture and maintain. “

Co-author Professor James Moore, translation director for Imperial’s bioengineering division, said: Respiratory disease around the world. We have the right technology to help meet this unmet medical need and hope to attract investment to take it forward. ”