For the patients severely affected by the corona virus, they find difficulty in breathing. In hospitals, ventilators are used to supply oxygen to the patient’s lungs and remove carbon dioxide from it. This helps the patient to breathe.
The problem faced by many hospitals around the world is that there are limited numbers of ventilators compared to the number of patients. Due to the break in supply chain, it is not possible to manufacture those ventilators and make it available to the hospitals.
In time of this crisis, the 3D printing community has come up with a 3D printable ventilator. The prototypes have been tested and implemented in many countries. Not just the ventilator, the designers are also designing splitters for the ventilators. The splitters will help to support 1+ patients with a single ventilator. There are developments going in the design of 2-way, 3-way & 4-way splitters.
The open source project on ventilator is available in the below links. If you are looking to start anything on that, this link could work as a reference. All the updates are posted here.
If there is anything you can contribute, do your bit.
Image courtesy: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/open-source-project-spins-up-3d-printed-ventilator-validation-prototype-in-just-one-week/
Check other stories and updates on 3D printed ventilators here.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/04/02/3d-printed-ventilator-splitters-for-covid-19/
https://time.com/5811091/makers-3d-printing-coronavirus/