IIT-Bhubaneswar Students Develop Affordable Ventilation Device

Bhubaneswar: A  group of students from IIIT, Bhubaneswar and two others have developed a ventilation device that will help patients suffering from mild respiratory distress, particularly those afflicted by COVID-19.

Claiming the device to be first-of-its-kind, the students said it is shaped as a bubble enclosure for the head and works on the principle of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It enables a person to inhale almost pure oxygen to speed up body’s healing process. Named ‘Swasner’, it can act as an alternative way for the people suffering from respiratory diseases in emergency situation, they added.

Made of medicated plastic procured from Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering and Technology (CIPET), the device has two plastic rings bearing three ports to make the base. A round-shaped piece of mackintosh fabric is stitched to the rings to have a t-shirt like grip on the user’s neck.

The engineering students said the base of the device is fitted to the bubble-like enclosure where pure oxygen is pumped in. It can be connected to wall-mounted oxygen cylinders in hospitals, they said.

Claiming that the device can be used as an affordable alternative to costly ventilator, they said it has been sent to hospitals in Cuttack and Mumbai for clinical test.

It took the students Ananya Aprameya, Tapaswin Padhi, Sidharth Shankar Nayak, Sai Sambit Nayak, Divyajyoti Dash, Shovit Mitra and Vitthal Gupta if IIIT Bhubaneswar and Jivitesh Debata of ITER and Nand Kishore Gupta of NSIT Delhi four months to design the device.