Centre brings key features for ventilators for COVID-19 patients

As ventilators are key life-saving equipment in the fight against coronavirus outbreak in the country, the Union Health Ministry has framed essential features for these machines to be used for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

By Priyanka Sharma

New Delhi [India] Mar 31 : As ventilators are key life-saving equipment in the fight against coronavirus outbreak in the country, the Union Health Ministry has framed essential features for these machines to be used for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

These vital features have been designed in collaboration with the Director-General (Life Sciences), Defence Research & Development Orgsation (DRDO).

According to health ministry officials: "It has been done to ensure availability of essential and very important medical equipment in the view of COVID-19. These features of ventilators include that the machine should be turbine/compressor based because the installation sites might not have central oxygen lines."

"Second, the machine should have invasive, non-invasive and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy (CPAP) features to make them versatile. The ventilator machine should have 200-600 ml tidal volume, lung mechcs display, monitoring of plateau pressure, Positive End-Expiratory Pressure (PEEP), Pressure Support Ventilation (PSV), oxygen concentration, lung mechcs/inverse ratio (I:E)," said the official adding that the life-saving equipment should have the continuous working capability of 4-5 days.

The official informed that as of now less than 20 patients of COVID-19 are on ventilator support across the country. "We have nearly 14,000 ventilators dedicated to COVID-19 patients placed at various hospitals nationwide. We have placed more orders for 30,000 ventilators from Bharat Electronics Limited and some automobile manufacture's like Maruti, TATA and Mahindra are in touch with us to develop ventilators. And they are capable for doing so," said the official.

Last week, had reported that Agva Healthcare in Noida is developing a prototype of ventilators for All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). "Agva Healthcare will build up 10,000 ventilators and orders have been placed for the same," said the official.

The Central government has also approached some international compes like Hamilton, Mindray and Draeger to supply additional machines. The government has also approached a Chinese supplier for 10,000 ventilators.

So far, India has reported over 1,200 confirmed positive cases of coronavirus and 32 deaths due to the deadly virus.

( With inputs from ANI )