Engineers with the Mercedes Formula One team are collaborating with University College of London to create A breathing aid device that can potentially help keep coronavirus patients out of intensive care and ease overload on hospitals.
University College London clinicians and engineers worked with Mercedes Formula One engineers to build the device, which delivers oxygen to the lungs without needing a ventilator and is similar to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices which are already being used in hospitals but are in short supply.
A total of 40 of the new devices have been delivered to ULCH and to three other London hospitals for trial usage. If trials go well, up to 1,000 of the CPAP machines can be produced per day by Mercedes-AMG-HPP, beginning in a week’s time. The UK’s regulatory organization – the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – has already given its approval for their use.
The Mercedes-UCL device had been “reverse engineered” [which means they took apart an existing off-patent CPAP device, copied and improved the design and adapted it for mass production] after early reports from Italy – which has been hit especially hard by the coronavirus – seem to show some success with patients given CPAP and keeps them from requiring more intricate mechanical ventilation, which involves sedation.
The Mercedes F1-UCL collaboration also included Oxford Optronix, a small business that has manufactured oxygen monitors for the devices.