AgVa Healthcare teams up with Maruti Suzuki to make low-cost ventilators

AgVa Healthcare has teamed up with automobile manufacturer Maruti Suzuki to ramp up production of ventilators after the government called on all firms to contribute to the anti-coronavirus effort.

An AgVa ventilator weighs only 3.5 kg and helps move less-critical patients back to their homes as the machine is easy to transport and install, and does not need much power.

Ventilators pump air into the lungs and are critical for hospitals around the world as they are swamped with COVID-19 cases. Reports say India only has about 40,000 ventilators.

AgVa has a capacity to produce 500 units per month but has been manufacturing 100 to 200 ventilators so far.

"Earlier, we were producing AgVa advanced ventilators. But after some modification in inspiratory, expiratory and beeping system, changes in software and hardware were made and we came up with COVID-19 ventilators," said Chief Executive Officer Diwakar Vaish.

"Our target is to produce 20,000 COVID-19 ventilators per month, and later increase production to six digits," he said.

Vaish said the company has an order book of about 17,000 ventilators, each costing about Rs 1.5 lakh. A traditional ventilator costs between Rs 4 lakh to 5 lakh.

As the death toll due to fresh coronavirus mounts across the country, which is under lockdown, AgVa is increasing production at both its units in Noida bordering the outskirts of the national capital.

He said while Maruti will help scale up production, the ventilator will remain a product of AgVa. The ventilator runs on room air without the need of compressed medical air.

It can deliver 100 per cent fraction of inspired oxygen (FIO2) when connected to an oxygen source.