COEP faculty, students develop mechanical ventilator for Sassoon Hospital in Pune

Faculty members and students from the prestigious College of Engineering Pune (COEP) have developed a prototype for a low-cost mechanical ventilator to help in the massive effort to contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

COEP director B B Ahuja said the Biomedical Engineering and Technology incubation centre at COEP has been developing medical devices along with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT Nagpur). “We have been in touch with the Sassoon Hospital which asked us to develop medical devices for them,”

Dr. Ajay Chandanwale, dean of B J Medical College and head of Sassoon General Hospital said COEP undertook the mechanical ventilator project at their request. “The prototype is being tested by our doctors and we will convey our feedback to the COEP team,” he said.

Ventilators are medical devices which help a critical patient with assisted breathing. While ventilators cost between Rs 25,000 to upwards of Rs one lakh of rupees, the COEP prototype was developed at a cost of around Rs 10,000, Ahuja said.

A team of six members including Ahuja, two faculty members and four research students worked on the project for two weeks. “Initial tests have been satisfactory and we now await a feedback from the doctors at Sassoon Hospital,” Ahuja said.

He said the cost could further reduce with mass manufacturing. Once accepted by the doctors, COEP will tie-up with a startup or existing manufacturers to manufacture and market the much-needed medical device, the COEP director said.