Design of Respiratory Assist Devices: Critical Review of Global Response to COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented demand of mechanical ventilator devices. A wide perception that such demand would not be fulfilled by existing manufacturers led to the widest global community response of its kind to design and manufacture such devices that included academic and industrial entities as well as hobbyists. Even though such global response was a positive action that aimed to mitigate an impending health crisis, reflection upon the different aspects of such response would provide much needed insights to make it more effective in future such crises. In this paper, a review of the different aspects of the global response from the point of view of a biomedical engineer in a developing country is presented. The aim is to put such activities in perspective and point out the gaps that need to be addressed.