An Indian-American couple has developed a low-cost portable emergency ventilator which is soon to hit the production stage and will be available in India and the developing world at an affordable rate.
Devesh Ranjan, a professor and associate chair in the prestigious Georgia Tech’s George W Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and his wife Kumuda Ranjan, a practising family physician in Atlanta, developed the emergency ventilator from concept to prototype in just about three weeks-time.
“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 have enough money to make sure that they are making enough profit in the market,” Professor Ranjan said.
This Open-AirVentGT has been developed to address acute respiratory distress syndrome, a common complication for COVID-19 patients which causes their lungs to stiffen, requiring their breathing to be assisted by ventilators.
The ventilator developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology uses electronic sensors and computer control to manage key clinical parameters such as respiration rate, tidal volume (the amount of air moved into and out of the lungs during each cycle), inspiration and expiration ratio, and pressure on the lungs.
Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Ranjan earned his degree in engineering from Regional Engineering College, Trichy followed by Masters and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and 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 of low cost ventilators and export across the world at a rate that is affordable to all.
Professor Ranjan said that the low-cost ventilator has been developed keeping in mind the requirements of countries like India and those in Africa, where the affordability care is a very big factor in providing healthcare to the people.
Addressing the critical shortage of low-cost, mechanical ventilators is a key focus of Renew Group, who are collaborating with a group of companies and affiliates committed to fast-track the manufacture and distribution of the medical-grade ventilation device, Open-AirVentGT to hospitals and remote facilities in under-privileged countries including India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, the company said in a statement.
