Solidarity ventilator for COVID-19 patients arrives in Latin America

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic back in March, the spread of this virus has exposed the need for adequate and sufficient medical equipment to fight its effects. For this reason, ennomotive led a solidarity initiative that resulted in OxyVita Emergency Ventilator, a low-cost OpenSource mechanical ventilator.

This project became a reality thanks to the alliance and collaboration of different entities: lyntia, the company that funded the preseries; Vithas and Vithas Foundation, validating and providing intensive-care medical expertise; McFly Technologies, in charge of the fast industrialization of the ventilator; and Ayuda en Acción, the NGO that will distribute it in Latin America and Africa.

Other entities have also collaborated in the project, such as the Catholic University of Valencia, Medical Simulator, Capital Energy, ICAI Engineering Foundation, Rivergo Advisors, and Francisco de Vitoria University.

For the development of this ventilator, ennomotive started off with a design created by the British engineer Frede Jensen -who has vast experience in the development of medical devices and ventilators- and has already received the authorisation of the Spanish Medical Agency to start the clinical tests.

Said authorisation allows the use of OxyVita in ICUs to fight against the pandemic in countries in need. The goal now is to send this ventilator to places in an emergency situation caused by the spread of COVID-19.

“We are extremely proud of this achievement, especially for having a ventilator with different, very important characteristics: it is reliable, portable, scalable, and easy to use”, Enrique Ramirez, ennomotive founder, assured.

The manufacturing process of the ventilators takes place in McFly Technologies’ facilities, where the last 31st of July OxyVita was presented. Several members of the different entities of the consortium participated in this event, as did Cristóbal Fernández Roldán, the Ecuadorian ambassador in Spain.

Another added value for OxyVita is that it is designed to be assembled and tested locally in the destination country. The electronics and the software will be sent from Spain so that the receivers only have to bring the remaining components. For this reason, the cost of OxyVita is under 1,000 EUR, much below conventional ventilators, generally priced between 9,000 EUR and 60,000 EUR.

Latin America, the current epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic

With close to 30% of the total confirmed coronavirus cases globally, Latin America is, right now, the most impacted region of the world, with almost 5 million cases and 200,000 casualties. With this scenario, the first shipment of ventilators will go to Ecuador. Thanks to Ayuda en Acción, OxyVita will be sent to the healthcare centres around the country with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

ennomotive

Ennomotive is the leading open innovation platform that solves technology challenges with a community of +20,000 engineers and startups from all over the world. Ennomotive started and led the OxyVita ventilator project through the publication of a challenge on its platform. This project is a solidarity initiative part of the company’s corporate social responsibility to respond to the pandemic.