DSM India, UNDP and AIIMS Collaborate to Deploy Low-cost Ventilators and Bridge the Demand-supply Gap

Given the acute need of critical hospital equipment to combat COVID-19, DSM India has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to co-fund and procure electronic ventilators with specifications developed through the help of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). These will be made in India by a qualified manufacturer at a low cost, and will be deployed free of cost in hospitals across the country by May 2020. UNDP will also provide training to medical professionals across India on COVID-19 response through a TeleICU service.

“DSM is about ‘Doing Something Meaningful’; our partnership with UNDP will help address a serious global challenge while being aligned with our key priority of helping ensure the health and safety of customers, employees, shareholders and society at large”, DSM said in a statement.

When asked more about the partnership, B Rajagopal, Regional President, DSM India, informed that the deployment will be done based on the need and the number of the COVID-19 cases that the hospitals are handling. “There is an urgent need for such a programme, given the way COVID-19 cases are spreading in India. From the data, it appears that at least five per cent of these cases may require to be kept in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and may need life-saving ventilator support. The number of ventilator beds in India is much lower than what is actually needed. If there is a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, this will be a serious challenge to the Indian healthcare system”, he said.

Shedding light on the role of AIIMS in this initiative, Rajagopal notified, “Technical experts from AIIMS Delhi will support UNDP national and state team in identifying the most cost-effective ventilator that is compatible with COVID-19 requirements and locally developed (due to ongoing global medical equipment shortages). The technical parameters for the ventilator have been put together, based on the advice from AIIMS experts. In addition, AIIMS medical experts will offer emergency health consultations to doctors and other health workers across India using the existing UNDP health platform.”