NASA Selects 3 Indian Firms to Make Low Cost COVID-19 Ventilator

NASA has selected three Indian companies to make a low-cost ventilator tailored for COVID-19 patients.

NASA has selected three Indian companies namely Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd, Bharat Forge Ltd and Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd to make a low-cost ventilator tailored for COVID-19 patients.

The prototype, which was created by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers in just 37 days, received an emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration on April 30.

Coronavirus
Coronaviruses infect animals, humans, and birds. Human coronaviruses, such as SARS, MERS, and 2019-nCoV cause respiratory distress and even death. The S protein is the infectious agent of the virus.

‘The low cost ventilator VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally) offers a simpler, more affordable option for treating critical patients while freeing up traditional ventilators for those with the most severe COVID-19 symptoms.’

Called VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally), the high-pressure ventilator was designed to use one-seventh the parts of a traditional ventilator, relying on parts already available in the supply chains.

Its flexible design means that it can also be modified for use in field hospitals, NASA said.

The Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which owns the patents and software for VITAL, is offering a free licence for the device. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Indian Namaste the Preferred Greeting over Conventional Handshake
COVID-19 pandemic is causing changes in how we greet each other. The traditional Indian way of greeting with folded hands (Namaste) is now being preferred over handshake. Namaste has more to it than just being a greetings, read to find out

"The VITAL team is very excited to see its technology licenced," Leon Alkalai, Manager of the JPL Office of Strategic Partnerships, and a member of the VITAL leadership team, said in a statement.

"Our hope is to have this technology reach across the world and provide an additional source of solution to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis," it added.

How Could COVID-19 be Prevented from Invading a Host Cell?
Protease inhibitors or inhibitor cocktails that target SARS-CoV2 could potentially ward off future pandemics because of additional mutations in the S-protein priming sequence in coronaviruses.

NASA has so far selected 21 companies -- eight US companies and 13 international companies (including three from India) -- to make the ventilator developed with inputs from doctors and medical device manufacturers.

Source-IANS

India's Covid-19 Tally to 1,45,380
Health Ministry Data revealed that there were 6,535 coronavirus positive cases added in 24 hours which also witnessed 146 new fatalities.