Local start-up shines thru gloom

Medical ventilator, a crucial lifesaving equipment, is still scarce in rural and certain urban hospitals where coronavirus patients continue to suffer and die.

Following months of work after the pandemic, researchers from a Bangladesh technology startup "CRUX" have developed a medical ventilator which can be rapidly developed at a low cost and is power-efficient and portable.

Keeping commercial thoughts aside, the inventors have also decided to open up the technology for all -- a source of pride for the country.

On August 9, the research paper on the ventilator was accepted at the International Conference on Biomedical and Bioinformatics Engineering to be held in Kyoto, Japan on November 12-15 this year.

The next day, the medical ventilator became the first hardware of any kind developed in Bangladesh to be certified by the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA).

In April last year, a month after the coronavirus pandemic hit Bangladesh, CRUX Founder and CEO Syed Razwanul Haque Nabil initiated a ventilator project along with team member AKM Maruf Hossain Rahat.

Later, Shovon Sudan Saha, Md Hasanur Rahman Sohag, Fozle Rabbi Shafi and Satya Ranjan Sarkar joined in and the first prototype of the low-cost ventilator was developed in July 2020.

CRUX founder Nabil is known for being the team leader of the country's first drone project at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) and other innovative projects.

The ventilator, named the "Rapidly Developable Low Cost and Power Efficient Portable Turbine-Based Emergency Ventilator", is turbine-based and works like any other commercial ventilator but more energy efficiently, said Nabil. Its noise level is almost half compared to the others and it is functional in PRVC, PCB, SIMV and BiPAP modes, he added.

CRUX developed a pressure release mechanism instead of solenoid and a PEEP valve which is 35 percent more energy efficient and inexpensive. "It's also functional with any available patient circuit," he said, adding that it also has a large screen to display important real-time data.

A commercial medical ventilator's price is approximately between Tk 10 lakh and 30 lakh while this open source ventilator can be commercially produced spending only around Tk 1-2 lakh, including manufacturing and other related costs, said Nabil.

Nabil also said that the ventilator is a modular design which means that it can be maintained for a long time, by replacing only the part that's damaged and replacements from any manufacturer can be used.

Prof Dr Sabyasachi Roy, former head of the anaesthesiology department of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, said, "I've tested the ventilator as a professional and can tell that this works perfectly for any general or Covid-19 patient; it works properly like any ICU ventilator available in the market."

The ventilator would still need Bangladesh Medical Research Council's (BMRC) approval before its industrial production and use in intensive care units. "If any company comes forward for its mass production, it can be very useful amid a crisis of ventilators," he said.

Dr Tanzilur Rahman, a biomedical engineer and assistant professor of the electrical and computer engineering department of North South University, said during the pandemic, ventilators have become a life-saving device.

"As they have researched and developed it in Bangladesh and made it open-source, it can be produced by anyone in the country or any other country in the world with the available technology," he said.

Munir Hasan, general secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network, said Bangladeshi developers are known globally for developing open-source software over the years. "For decades, we've been software focused. But CRUX showed the world that Bangladesh has started contributing to the hardware field too.

"It will encourage the youth and help us become a hardware developing nation."

To the CRUX researchers also, being the first Bangladesh open source hardware to be recognised by the international association and being accepted at the conference in Kyoto portrays the potential of Bangladeshi youths to the world.

"We dedicated our effort, valuable time, and merit -- along with a lot of money -- to developing such an important medical device. Anyone can now develop the medical ventilator to save lives," said Nabil.

Though the project is a matter of pride for Bangladesh, CRUX faced financial hurdles as there were no sponsors interested in initially funding the project.

Open source projects can also be commercially viable but they ultimately decided to keep the technology open for all, Nabil added.

"Still, this gave us recognition internationally as a startup and as researchers, and we're happy with it."