Sandra Alves
Today at 9:09 pm–
The appeal launched by João Nascimento in mid-March mobilized more than 1400 specialists in order to create fans that can be manufactured locally and in bulk, at low cost. Two weeks later, the project was successfully tested and the patent is already registered, in the name of Humanity.
“Map ready! Open source emergency ventilator easy to build all over the world with simple components supplied locally. Estimated cost of production $ 1000. Article shared tomorrow at Arxiv.org. Patent owner: humanity. From Portugal with Love”.
It was with this message on the social network Twitter that João Nascimento announced that an emergency ventilator was created for intensive care with common industrial materials and components, within the scope of “ProjectOpenAir“, a movement launched in mid-March that brought together more than 1400 specialists, including engineers, physicists, academics, not only Portuguese but also from several countries in the world.
The project was developed by volunteers and in open source (“open source”), that is, the concept reached is not subject to copyright. And so, the patent was registered in the name of humanity, so that no entity can derive economic benefits from this innovation.
João Nascimento, 40, a neuroscience student at Harvard University in the United States, estimates that the production cost is around one thousand dollars (less than a thousand euros), when the price of ventilators for hospital intensive care units is normally higher than four thousand dollars (3600 euros).
“The great advantage of this fan is that can be built quickly using inexpensive and easily accessible components, which means that can be mass produced and anywhere in the world, at a low price and com very fast“, the project’s mentors point out in a statement.
“This is a emergency fan, which meets the minimum requirements for ventilation of Covid-19 patients, so at a time when the world is running out of time to equip itself with the solutions needed to deal with the pandemic, this solution can help us save tens of thousands of lives“, they underline, when the galloping numbers of deaths and patients hospitalized in intensive care in Spain and Italy are seen daily – with health professionals facing the decision of deciding to whom they assign vital equipment on which the lives of patients depend. sick.
