There is big breakthrough for patients with lung diseases by a team of Mercedes Benz Formula One in collaboration with University College London. It is a new version of breathing aid that can help COVID-19 patients breathe more easily when an oxygen mask alone is insufficient.
The team has reverse-engineered old model of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device in less than 100 hours and received regulatory approval within one week. The design of the device introduced by Mercedes Benz consumes 70 percent less oxygen then previous models .
UCL Hospital consultant Professor Mervyn Singer said: “These devices help save lives by ensuring ventilators are used only for the most severely ill.”
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices have been used in China and Italy to deliver air and oxygen under pressure to patients’ lungs to help them breathe without the need for them to go on a ventilator.The heath experts found its working satisfactory.
Use of the new CPAP has already been approved by the relevant regulator and reports from Italy show that approximately 50 percent of patients given CPAP have avoided the need for uncomfortable mechanical ventilation .
U.K officials briefed media on Monday that it has placed an order for 10,000 ventilators to be made by a joint venture of companies including Airbus, Ford, and Rolls-Royce as part of efforts to fight the coronavirus.
Professor Rebecca Shipley, Director of UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering, said: “These life-saving devices are relatively simple to manufacture and can be produced quickly. We hope that, by making the blueprints publicly available, they can be used to improve the resilience of healthcare systems preparing for the Covid-19 pandemic globally.”
The effort of Mercedes is part of a courtesy undertaken by all seven UK-based F1 teams, featuring three different work streams, aimed at boosting the supply of critical-care equipment in hospitals across the country.
Mercedes said that production of the CPAP devices is at full swing to full fill the orders.