COVID-19: Covid India partners Applied Materials to create low-cost ventilator splitters to support medical communities

Bengaluru: Covid India Campaign, a non-profit, volunteer-driven, disaster support task force is collaborating with Applied Materials India to help support medical communities during the Covid-19 crisis. Leveraging such collaborative efforts, Covid India Campaign has engaged with specialists, including 3D printers, critical care experts, designers and engineers, under one roof to better gauge ventilator splitting techniques and designs to improve access among patients.

India is currently witnessing a shortage in the availability of ventilators leading to a sharp gap in supply and demand. Such limited access to respiratory support resources has created a strain on the medical fraternity; therefore, ideating towards ventilator splitting has taken precedence among non-profits in India.

Through this collaboration, Covid India Campaign and Applied Materials India are attempting to simplify the process of designing cost-effective ventilator splitters, which may be assembled in any part of the country. Applied Materials India is offering innovative open source designs for low-cost ventilator splitters that are prototyped by Covid India Campaign’s vast network of labs. Covid India Campaign also provides access to the 3D printing community and a host of industry experts to help design firms to quickly and efficiently produce designs at scale.

Speaking on the collaboration, Srinivas Satya, Country President and Managing Director, Applied Materials India said “Covid-19 is undoubtedly having a tremendous impact in India and the situation calls for expertise from across sectors to come together to bolster and support the medical community as they work to mitigate the pandemic. Our collaboration with Covid India Campaign aims to help support the frontline healthcare workers during this time of crisis and deliver accessible products to those in dire need.”

Dr. Rahul Singh Sardar, Co-Founder of ICATT Foundation and core team member of Covid India Campaign, said, “India today is positioned third in the global ranking of Covid-19 infections with around 8 Lakh active cases. Studies suggest at least 5% of these patients require critical care (ICU) to survive. This means there is a dire need for about 40,000 ventilators across the country. Currently, we are experiencing a huge gap in the supply chain where the medical devices are concerned. Our volunteer led Covid India Campaign group is working with various companies like Applied Materials India to support innovative designs to produce ventilator splitters through a network of rapid prototyping labs and the 3D printing community. This will potentially help address the current shortage of devices in the treatment centres.”

Dr. Rahul Singh Sardar, Nayan Bheda, Pankaj Gupta, Devendra Chaudhary, Harsha Madalam and Srinivas Kumar are the core team of the Splitter Group of Covid India Campaign.

Ventilator splitters are intended to act as a stop-gap device, which can effectively double or quadruple the number of patients who can be treated using existing ventilators. The splitters should also assist hospitals in the interim until new shipments of ventilators are readily available.