Global ventilator emergency
Dyspnea is one of the typical symptoms of infected patients in COVID-19. Only by using ventilator to assist or replace breathing can the patient’s blood oxygen content be guaranteed and the respiratory system and important organs be prevented from failing. However, ordinary hospitals will only be equipped with ventilators in intensive care units, which makes the original few ventilators very scarce during the epidemic.
According to the estimation of the American Society of Critical Care Medicine, if there is an outbreak, 960,000 patients may need to use ventilators, but there are only about 200,000 in the United States. In Italy, which is also the hardest hit area, the number of ventilators can only meet less than a quarter of the demand; Recently, after British Prime Minister David Boris Johnson was diagnosed, the first sentence after talking with US President Trump was "We need a ventilator" … …
China is an important producer of ventilators in the world, and all countries in the world come to China to buy ventilators. However, even if the factory in China is operating at full capacity, it is difficult to meet the overseas demand for ventilators. It is understood that orders from some large factories have already been placed in June and July, and orders from small factories are also very tight. The shortage of raw materials and poor logistics have affected the production speed of ventilator.
Medtronic shares the whole set of intellectual property rights of ventilators to the world.
Just as the world is at a loss, Medtronic, an American medical technology giant, has made an amazing move recently, sharing a full set of intellectual property rights of its ventilator to the whole world on its website, including design schematic, production specifications, manuals, software codes and so on.
Founded in 1949, Dublin-based Medtronic is a leading medical technology company in the world, which has made great achievements in vascular diseases, heart valve replacement, extracorporeal heart support and minimally invasive heart surgery. Medtronic manufactured the first portable external pacemaker in 1957 and the first reliable implantable cardiac pacing system in 1960. This has established Medtronic’s position as a global leader in pacing technology.
Medtronic said in a statement that although the company has been fully producing 7×24 hours a day and increased its production capacity by 40%, it still faces a huge shortage of ventilators around the world, so the company decided to share its intellectual property rights such as ventilator design documents, hoping that manufacturers and engineers can be inspired, exert their potential and save lives.
It is reported that Medtronic’s open source PB 560 ventilator has been put into the market in 2010, and has been sold in 35 countries around the world after more than 10 years of clinical tests.
PB 560 ventilator is a compact and portable ventilator, which can provide respiratory support for adults and children. It can be used in clinical environment and family, and provides mobile breathing support. PB 560 product and service manuals, design requirements documents, manufacturing documents and schematic diagrams are now available in Medtronic.com/openventilator. Medtronic has published the design specifications of PB 560, and will provide software codes and other information soon.
At present, the high-end ventilators in the world are basically monopolized by Doelger in Germany and Jieding in Sweden, while the second-rate ventilators are taken over by Medtronic in the United States, Hamilton in Switzerland, GE Medical in the United States, Viaan in the United States and Steven in Germany. Medtronic’s disclosure of its ventilator intellectual property rights will undoubtedly contribute to alleviating the current global "ventilator shortage" and will also promote more start-ups to enter this track.
At the same time, Medtronic’s warm-hearted move has also won countless praises. Many netizens said: It is a gift in the snow and a light of human nature.