US authorities approved the first low-cost ventilator for the treatment of patients with coronavirus
US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has approved the manufacture of The Coventor’s new mechanical ventilator and its use for treating patients with Covid-19. This was reported on the website of the developer – University of Minnesota.
Ventilators are designed to force the mixture of oxygen and compressed, dried air to increase the level of oxygen in the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the lungs.
The use of such “fans” has become especially urgent because of the coronavirus pandemic, when the number of patients is growing sharply every day. As a result, many countries faced an acute shortage of this medical equipment – in connection with this, in particular, some large companies and enterprises began to reorient their production to the production of ventilators.
Scientists are also working to solve this problem. Thus, a team of teachers of engineering and medical faculties of the University of Minnesota (USA), with the financial support of several American companies, created The Coventor – the “first of its kind” (according to the scientists themselves) low-cost ventilator.
In size, it can be compared to a small box and does not require the supply of oxygen or air under pressure. The cost of one copy is about a thousand dollars, while the price of ventilation devices used today in the United States can reach 20-25 thousand dollars.
The developers note that they sought to create an apparatus that would be as effective as the existing “lung fans”, but at the same time its production would be much less costly. The Coventor will be launched on the market, in particular, by Boston Scientific, a major manufacturer of medical equipment and supplies for surgery.
In addition, the University of Minnesota team announced that the specifications that describe the device and all the features of The Coventor will be made available to other companies, provided that they independently obtain permission from the FDA or relevant international health authorities.
“We hope The Coventor will be useful in those clinical settings when traditional ventilators are not available. With getting permission from the FDA, we got closer to that, ”said Stephen Richardson, a specialist in heart anesthesiology at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.
As of April 16, since the beginning of the year, more than two million coronavirus infected in 185 countries have been recorded, 138 thousand patients have died. The United States came first in terms of both the number of cases (644,348) and the number of deaths (28,554 died). A general disaster regime has been introduced in the country.
The day before, experts published recommendations on the use of membrane oxygenation in the treatment of Covid-19 patients in conditions of a general lack of resources.
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