In the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina, the forecasts of infected people at the peak of contagion that will require connection to ventilators by far exceeds the current available capacity. This project proposes the development of a low complexity kit that allows quadrupling the capacity of each ventilator in a context of peak demand and saturation of the available ones. This kit may be manufactured locally in each country.
The current capacity of ventilators in Argentina does not reach 5,000 units. At the end of May, the estimations of infections during the peak, range between 200k and 2.2 million. Of those infected people, approximately 5% - between 10k and 110k - will require intensive care. Given this scenario, the units could be scarce and the medical personnel would find themselves in the dilemma of having to choose who accesses a ventilator and who does not, as has happened in other countries of the world.
To ease the burden of this possible scenario, the proposed low complexity kit presents an alternative solution to be applied in critical situations. This technology will temporarily expand existing commercial ventilators capacity up to four times, in order to face the emergency in case of saturation of the sanitary system. Once the project has been developed, the production cost of each kit will be US $ 500.
This is a development that, while addressing a short-term problem (global shortage of ventilators in the context of COVID19), has the long-term purpose of alleviating the consequences of the pandemic by saving human lives.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
