A city-based medical college professor and his team have come up with a prototype for an affordable and automatic Artificial Manual Breathing Unit (AMBU) operating device, which could be crucial in this hour of need when India is fighting with COVID-19.

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Dr Rajeev Chauhan, assistant professor in the anaesthesiology department in the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and his team come up with the prototype of the AMBU bag. "I have seen attendants and relatives operating manual AMBU bags for hours to give concentrated oxygen to patients on ventilators. And I thought of making a device which can run mechanically and work automatically," said Chauhan.

The professor collaborated with a small start-up company Gyrodrive Machineries Ltd, Pune with two young enthusiastic engineer pass outs of IISc Bangalore - Eshan Dhar and Akash Gaddamwar. "For the last one year we have been working on this project and filed patent after we were ready with our basic prototype," said Dr Chauhan, who had started working on this unit in 2018.

The automatic AMBU bag has been patented in Dr Rajeev Chauhan's name. "Due to a shortage of ventilators, most patients in hospitals, often have to rely on the manually operated AMBU bags for artificial ventilation. These manual AMBU bags provide a short-term alternative when mannualy operating the AMBU bags is not possible so with this invention we can use this device for COVID-19 patients as well, "explains Dr Chauhan. This device can be operated by a small motor that will automatically pump the AMBU bag at the required rate.

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