COVID-19 pandemic : The great rush for ventilators

Detroit is the largest and most populous city in the US state of Michigan, located on the US-Canada border. Detroit is best known as the centre of the US automobile industry and the "Big Three" of automobile industry - General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler are all headquartered in Detroit. Detroit is planning a rapid mobilisation of all its engineering and manufacturing might, unseen since the World War-2, switching from making cars to making ventilators as the COVID-19 pandemic brings the US to a breaking point.

As COVID-19 positive cases mount, countries across the globe are facing the gravest shortage of ventilators. An estimated 5-10% of total patients will require critical care in the form of ventilator support.

A July 2006 report of Congressional Budget Office warned that the United States had only about 1,00,000 ventilators, with three-quarters of them in use on any given day. There are further 12,700 units in the National Strategic Stockpile, a cache of medical supplies maintained by the US Federal Government to respond to national emergencies. The American Hospital Association estimates 9,60,000 people will need ventilators over the course of the pandemic. Now the US’s largest car manufacturers are stepping in to mass-produce ventilators. General Motors plans to produce 10,000 ventilators per month and Ford hopes to produce 50,000 units in the next 100 days. Mexico was the top source of imported medical devices for the United States. US medical device firm Hillrom is due to start production of ventilators from its Tijuana facility in Mexico. “You can’t flip a switch and turn them on overnight. But the world can’t afford for us to wait six months,” said Howard Karesh, Hillrom spokesman.

Governments across Europe have intensified their search for ventilators as doctors and hospitals prepare for a continuing surge in patients infected with the COVID-19 virus. Italy, the country at the epicentre of the European outbreak, told Siare Engineering, the country’s only ventilator manufacturer, to quadruple monthly production, even deploying members of the armed forces to help meet the new production target. Italy currently has about 3,000 ventilators, which appears well short of its needs.

The British health secretary Matt Hancock said the National Health Service had about 5,000 ventilators and needed “many times more.” “We’re saying that if you produce a ventilator, then we will buy it. No number is too high,” Hancock told Sky News.

According to estimates put out by Johns Hopkins University, Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, and Princeton University, the demand for ventilators in India is expected to surge to 1 million units by July 2020, while the availability is estimated to be only between 40,000 and 50,000 units. India might need anywhere between 1.1 to 2.2 lakh ventilators by May 15 in the worst-case scenario, according to a report by Brookings. “We are not yet ready with the number of ventilators required to tackle a pandemic," said Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, chairman of Manipal Health Enterprises Private Ltd.

The main domestic manufacturers of ventilators in India are Skanray Technologies in Mysore, AgVa Healthcare in New Delhi, AB Industries of Vadodara, Air Liquid Medical Systems of Chennai, Mumbai-based AVI Healthcare, Ahmedabad-based Life Line Biz and Thane-based Medion Healthcare. These manufacturers together had manufactured only 2,520 units in February, whereas production in March has more than doubled. The plans in India are to increase the manufacturing capacity from the current production rate of 5,500- 6,000 units per month to 50,000 units per month by May end. Skanray Technologies, the leading ventilator manufacturer in the country, has entered into a consortium with BEL, BHEL and Mahindra & Mahindra Group to ramp up production from its usual 2,000 units per month to 30,000 units per month by May end. Similarly, AgVa has tied up with Maruti Suzuki to scale up production from the present 400 units per month to 4,000 units in April and plans are to reach 10,000 units per month by May. Government and industry plans to bring in 2-3 different models of ventilators to tackle the shortage. While one will be a low cost respirator model, another will be a high-end ICU model, the third option being multi-patient ventilators.

(V Venkateswara Rao is a retired corporate professional and a freelance writer.)