COVID-19: Hyderabad engineers develop low-cost portable ventilator system

HYDERABAD: A team of engineers in Hyderabad has designed a low-cost ventilator system, which can help COVID-19 patients with respiratory assistance.

The developers said this can be helpful in meeting an emergency in the event of a shortage of regular ventilators.

Krishna Ganji, Founder and CEO of NextByte Innovations Private Limited, said that the electromechanical device was used to operate manual 'Ambo bag' thus assisting the patient in respiration.

He demonstrated the technology using an android phone, but the actual device will comprise control knobs to set the speed.

The electronic engineer with experience in embedded systems and Internet of Things on Saturday tweeted a video of a demonstration of this technology. He tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telangana Minister K. T. Rama Rao.

He said as the regular ventilators were available for not even one per cent of the population in the country, the team developed a portable low-cost ventilator system. "This is not equal to regular ventilator, but will be helpful if the situation gets worse," he said.

The device can be made available for Rs 4,000. The regular India-made ventilator costs around Rs six lakh. Rama Rao tweeted that lots of innovative ideas are coming to the fore in these times. He asked Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industry and Information Technology, to get one of the hospitals to explore feasibility of the device. (IANS)

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