NASA’s JPL-Designed Ventilator for COVID Treatment Is Going Viral

May 31, 2020 (EIRNS)—Countries all over the world are getting licenses to produce the new ventilator specially designed to treat COVID-19 patients by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). The Press Trust of India reported May 30 that “three Indian companies have gotten licenses from NASA to manufacture its indigenously developed ventilators for critical COVID-19 patients. The three Indian companies are Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd, Bharat ForgeNSE 6.22% Ltd, and Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd, the space organization [NASA] said in a statement on May 29.

Apart from the Indian firms, 18 other companies, including 8 American and 3 Brazilian, have been selected to manufacture the critical breathing devices. The JPL engineers designed the special ventilator—called VITAL—in little over a month and received “Emergency Use Authorization” from the Food and Drug Administration on April 30. The VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally) equipment uses just one-seventh as many parts as a traditional ventilator. NASA said that it relies only on parts which are readily available in many countries’ supply chains. This makes its production simpler, cheaper, and faster than for previously available ventilator designs.