IIIT Bhubaneswar Students Develop Ventilation Device To Help Patients With Respiratory Diseases

Bhubaneswar:  At a time when most of the COVID-19 patients are succumbing to the virus while struggling to breathe, a  group of students from IIIT, Bhubaneswar have developed a helmet-like ventilation device that will help patients suffering from mild respiratory distress.

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

The device is completely made up of medicated plastic collected from Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering and Technology (CIPET). It has two plastic rings bearing three ports to make the base. A round-shaped piece of mackintosh fabric is stitched to the rings so as to have a t-shirt like grip on the user’s neck. The base is fitted to the bubble-like enclosure or chamber inside which pure oxygen is pumped in. The device can be connected to wall-mounted oxygen cylinders in hospitals, the students  claimed.

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

Swasner, can be used as an affordable alternative against costly ventilator, said the students, who have sent the device to hospitals in Cuttack and Mumbai for clinical test.