Three companies of Indian origin have been given license by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the purpose of manufacturing its indigenously developed ventilator for the coronavirus patients.
NASA stated on Friday that the three Indian companies are Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd, Bharat Forge Ltd, and Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd.
Apart from these, 18 other companies, out of which eight are American and three companies of Brazil have been permitted to manufacture the device.
The NASA has developed a ventilator, especially for coronavirus patients, at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in South California. The engineers of JPL designed a special ventilator named VITAL in a little over a month’s time and received ‘Emergency Use Authorization’ from the Food and Drug Administration on April 30.
The Space organization said, “The VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally) equipment uses one-seventh the parts of a traditional ventilator, relying on parts already available in supply chains.”
The high-pressure ventilator offers a simple affordable option for treating critical patients in place of traditional ventilators for those with the most critical symptoms of COVID-19. NASA said, “Its flexible design means it also can be modified for use in field hospitals.”
John Alkalai, manager of the JPL Office of the strategic partnership said, “The VITAL team is very excited to see their technology licensed. Our hope is to have this technology reach across the world and provide an additional source of solutions to deal with the on-going COVID-19 crisis.”
NASA stated that the VITAL was developed after input from the doctors and device manufacturers. A prototype of the JPL device was successfully tested by the Human Stimulation lab in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Mount Sinai on April 23. The design uses compressed air and can be easily deployed by a greater range of hospitals. It was recently tested at the UCLA simulation center at Los Angeles.
NASA added, “A high-fidelity lung simulator tested almost 20 different ventilator settings, representing a number of scenarios that could be seen in critically ill patients in an intensive care unit.”
Dr. Tisha Wang, who is the clinical chief of the UCLA Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine said, “VITAL performed well in simulation testing with both precise and reproducible results.”
A media statement said, “In addition, the setup and operation of the ventilator were quick and user-friendly. The UCLA team commends JPL for actively contributing to the COVID-19 response and successfully addressing one of the key medical needs in the sickest group of patients.”
the Wuhan originated Corona virus has affected 5931293 people around the world. And has claimed lives of 3,65,051 people.
