CAUSE

 In September a dear relative of one of our teammates passed away due to COVID-19 pandemic which brought all our lives to a standstill and crippled our medical system in the recent months. In his case suddenly inflammation in lungs occurred causing shortness of breath and oxygen level in body falling drastically. He was taken to a nearby hospital which referred him to other hospital as they didn't had a spare ventilator available. Before reaching the second hospital he passed away due to unavailability of a ventilator. 

This incident made us think over the critical role ventilator plays in life-death situations in this pandemic. After doing a bit of research data show that major cause of deaths due to coronavirus occur due to respiratory failures and this virus is fatal for people having higher age and preexisting chronic health diseases.

From February 20 to March 5, 2020, a study was conducted in Evergreen, Washington[1] on the characteristics and outcomes of critically ill patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. This study clearly showed 71% of the patients required mechanical ventilation and acute respiratory arrest was seen in all of them. Within 72 hours of developing ARDS(Acute respiratory distress syndrome), 53% of these patients showed increasing severity of respiratory problems, leading to poor short-term outcomes and a higher risk of death. As of March 17, 2020, the mortality rate was 67% in these patients, with 24% critically ill and 9.5% discharged from hospital.

Now with active cases of corona more than a million in India alone[2] and over 12 million worldwide it is not possible for our medical system to provide ventilators to all and a lot of deaths in India occur because of unavailability of ventilators at desired time. Apart from this people with respiratory diseases also require ventilators to deal with their diseases. Clearly the need of the hour was to design a home-made ventilator which can do normal functioning as a ventilator do until proper medical support is available to a patient.

This quest led us to explore the possibility of such design and We would be happy to quote people have come up with some interesting designs in this field and a research also shows that these DIY(Do It Yourself) ventilators are doing a remarkable job in saving lives due this fatal coronavirus[3].


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