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The announcement of the American aerospace agency seeks to solve the high demand for these devices to treat patients around the world.
This Friday NASA reported that researchers and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, designed a high-pressure artificial respirator adapted to treat patients with coronavirus and thus solve the growing need for this type of devices.
The laboratory, dedicated to the construction and operation of unmanned spacecraft for the US agency, named the device VITAL, short for Locally Accessible Fan Intervention Technology.
The instrument was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. (FDA), will be for the specific use of patients infected with covid-19 and will possess free license with the aim of incentivizing its manufacture worldwide, according to Fred Farina, head of innovation and corporate associations at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
“Now that we have a design, we are working to pass the baton to the medical community and, ultimately, to patients as quickly as possible,” Farina said in a statement.
Like all artificial respirators, it requires the patient to be sedated to insert an oxygen tube through the airways to assist breathing.
The VITAL is quickly manufactured, since it is made up of fewer parts than a common fan, and its maintenance requires less work. Furthermore, the flexibility of its design allows the equipment to be used in field hospitals installed for emergencies in hotels, stadiums and other large venues around the world.
However, the new ventilators cannot replace the current ventilators used in hospitals, since these have a useful life of several years and serve to treat a series of medical cases, while the VITAL has a shelf life of 3 to 4 months.
For FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, “Fighting the virus and treating patients during this unprecedented global pandemic requires innovative approaches and actions. It also takes the” all hands on deck “approach, as demonstrated by engineers at NASA used their experience in spacecraft to design a ventilator designed for very sick patients with coronavirus. This example shows what we can do when we all work together to fight covid-19, “he noted.
Before the FDA reviewed and approved the prototype, VITAL was tested April 21 at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, New York.
The NASA announcement joins the efforts of several countries to design respirators, such as Chile, Colombia or Mexico in Latin America, a region where emerging economies innovate to contribute to the fight against the pandemic.
