IIT Bombay, IUST, NIT Srinagar students team up to develop low-cost ventilator

The students of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar and Islamic University of Science & Technology (IUST), Jammu and Kashmir have developed a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials. 

A group of students of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar and Islamic University of Science & Technology (IUST), Jammu and Kashmir have developed a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials. 

The project head Zulqarnain, a first-year student of Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, had come up with this idea of developing the ventilators after he understood that there were only 97 of them in the Kashmir Valley. Along with his friends P S Shoib, Asif Shah and Shakar Nehvi from IUST, Awantipora and Majid Koul from NIT Srinagar, they developed their own design of the ventilator. 

They have used materials from their laboratories and 3-D printing and laser-cutting technologies to develop the prototype. This was done keeping mind the current coronavirus situation, which attacks the respiratory systems and many patients require ventilator-support.

The low-cost ventilator has been named it Ruhdaar.

"The frugal design is created given the resource constraints. After medical testing, it will go for mass production, preferably by the small scale industry,” reads a statement by the Ruhdaar ventilator team.

As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), among those getting infected with Coronavirus, around 80 per cent will experience only mild illness, while 15 per cent will need oxygen support and the remaining five per cent who get critical or severe will need ventilators.

“Ventilators are thus an important component of the medical infrastructure required for treating infected patients, providing critical breathing support to those falling critically ill,” says release issued by the government.

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