KOCHI: At a time when the entire country is fretting over the availability of var ious medical equipment, especially ventilators, to fight the outbreak, Keralites can breathe easy. The working prototype of the minimum viable ventilator, developed at the Super Fab Lab under Kerala Startup Mission’s (KSUM) Integrated Startup Complex in Kalamassery, is ready for tri a l production. “The working prototype has been successfully tested for all the requisite parameters.
The prototype will now be sent to Kanjikode, where industrial clusters have been set up by the state government for manufacturing medical equipment,” said Tom Thomas, director of operations, KSUM. However, the numbers will be limited, he added. According to him, only 10 minimum viable ventilators will be manufactured in the first phase.
“These ventilators will then be sent for further testing. We need to be completely convinced with the quality of the equipment. Hence, the ventilators will be tested for a period of one week before sending it for production,” he said. However, there will be no mass production of the equipment. “These ventilators will be only produced as per need. Since this equipment is not used in hospitals during a normal situation, mass production will lead to these equipment becoming redundant and useless,” said Tom. According to Tom, the ventilators will have features that will enable doctors to control the volume of air and rate of respiration given to a patient.
“This device is not like the regular ventilators that have a lot of advanced features for monitoring the compliance of the lungs and providing ventilation in multiple modes. Since regular ventilators depend on components from outside India, we need a backup solution that can be manufactured here if normal ventilators cannot meet the demand,” he said. Besides developing minimum viable ventilators, KSUM has also come up with an idea platform. “In case the pandemic takes a turn for the worst and the lockdown extends, everything will change. To tackle such a situation, a lot of fresh ideas and initiatives will have to be arrived at,” said Tom.