With COVID-19 cases multiplying at an alarming rate, Griffyn Robotech, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations company headquartered in Pune, has announced manufacturing and mass supply of ventilators to support the Government of India in the fight against COVID-19 virus. The lethal coronavirus is known to affect the respiratory system of the patient who is required to be put on a ventilator, a machine that adds pressure to pump oxygen into the bloodstream and take out carbon dioxide from the lungs of the patient.

According to estimates by Government of India, the country needs 50,000 ventilators over the next two months. While the government has fast-tracked imports, the bulk of this shortfall has to be met by domestic manufacturers to fulfill the supply and demand gap. In this hour of crisis, Griffyn Robotech, with its other partners, scheduled for a Webex meeting to discuss the impact of the pandemic and initiatives that can be implemented to help the nation. The company was inspired by MIT ventilator design and created its own design using 3D printing technology to bring to the market 'Shwaas' an Ambu-bag based ventilator in the fight against COVID-19.

Speaking about the AI enabled ventilator, Mr. Amit Mahajan, Founder & CEO of Griffyn Robotech Pvt. Ltd., said, "Ventilators and other respiratory aids are critical devices in the fight against COVID-19, and to this end we are working together with our partners to ensure manufacturing and steady supply of ventilators in India. As a socially responsible and caring brand, we are committed to serving society in every way possible."

"Further to this effect, we will be creating an open API and extensible platform that can be leveraged for extended features to be rapidly introduced in next few weeks. We are also planning to collaborate with other start-ups for creating addons to the platform. We are all proud 'Desh Bhakts' and are glad to contribute with our skills so that we all win together the fight against the pandemic."

He further adds, "We will be applying to be one of the many suppliers to the government to manufacture ventilators on a large scale that can save millions of lives across India and globally to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This will ensure we have enough ventilators and are prepared to tackle the coronavirus outbreak."

Due to shortage of ventilators, caretakers and medical staff uses bag valve mask devices to manually ventilate patients for prolonged periods of time leading to mortality and morbidity. To address this, Griffyn Robotech has developed affordable AI specilized ventilation devices to treat patients with respiratory illnesses during emergencies and mass casualties, as an alternative for prolonged manual ventilation.

As per recent reports, India which only spends about 1 per cent of its gross domestic product on healthcare, has allocated fewer than 20,000 ventilators for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The public health research organisation, based in Washington and New Delhi, estimates India will need as many as 1m ventilators to address the peak of coronavirus cases.