VENTILATOR
CRISIS
GLOBAL
PROJECT
the abstract
People are dying because of a lack of ventilators. By the thousands in rich countries during Covid-19, and by the millions in other regions every year.
So it's obviously impossible to build or fund enough ventilators, right?
No, it's not. And we can save billions of $ of taxpayer money in the process.
"Mechanical ventilation is the
most used short-term life
support technique worldwide
and is applied daily for a diverse
spectrum of indications, from
scheduled surgical procedures
to acute organ failure."
This intro from a Mayo Clinic
paper underlines the importance
and versatility of ventilators.
Now - if only we had
enough of them
THE
MISSION
Eliminate
VENTILATOR
AVAILABLE"
"NO
as a cause of death
The Problem -
and its Solution
In a world where more than 2/3 of the global population own mobile electronic devices we don't have enough ventilators to help people survive a serious infection. Not even in all highly industrialized countries. That destroys lives and families. "Triage" sounds as elegant as most other french words, but when it means forcing doctors to decide for which one of two or more lives they can fight for and who they can't give that chance, there's nothing elegant about that. It's simply inhumane.
Other doctors don't have to make that choice. Because their hospital in a low-income country doesn't have any ventilators. If their patients need ventilators, they simply die. Just like that. By the millions each year. Only not just during a pandemic as in high-income countries, but all the time.
And it's often children because they are particularly susceptible to respiratory diseases.
Ventilator prices cost lives
By now, everyone has heard that ICU-suitable ventilators have 5-digit price tags. Why is that? One major factor is that ventilators are usually built in very low numbers. And they are designed for this kind of labor-intensive low volume production with expensive low-volume components.
Ventilator prices don't come down by much - if at all - when production gets ramped up massively like now, that some ventilator manufacturers are using contract manufacturers to multiply their output. There are two possible explanations for that: Either unit costs are not coming down significantly, or the manufacturers are increasing their profit margins.
Time to change that
But ventilators are actually not that complicated. At its heart, a ventilator's job is to control the pressure and flow of gas in a tube in relation to time. That's not child play, but it's not rocket science either.
The conventional principle of ventilator economics can be flipped. "High volume, low price" instead of "low volume, high price". This principle is not new - and it's used for just about every product except ventilators.
The recipe
The requirements for emergency stockpile ventilators and for hospital ventilators in low and middle income countries are very similar. They can be fulfilled with one ventilator model, tailored for the task, and specifically designed for effective mass production by the hundreds of thousands, from widely available, standard components. That should allow unit costs around or below US$1k, making this Global Crisis Ventilator massively more accessible.
The technical side is not really challenging; ventilators are not a new invention. The certification process is strict but straightforward. Naturally, the Global Crisis Ventilator has to be easy to use, robust and versatile. LEO is one example of such a concept.
For the whole world
For wealthier countries, the crisis ventilators could massively expand the ventilator stockpiles for the next crises, which - like MERS - could require ventilation of a multiple times higher percentage of patients than Covid-19, which already exceeded the ventilation capacities in many countries to devastating effect.
In countries like India, Brazil, or South Africa, the crisis ventilators would make it possible to increase the number of available ventilators by orders of magnitude. And to bring ventilation and general anesthesia to regions and sections of the population that never had access to it.
In low-income countries and crisis regions, the crisis ventilators would be a game-changer for doctors and patients.
The global crisis ventilators are no replacement for ICU-ventilators in high-end hospitals or the common small units for home or mobile use. They would only be available to governments and humanitarian organizations, because they are the ones dealing with health crises, and that's what these ventilators are for.
Direct benefits for
everyone, everywhere
Do you live in a high-income country? With good governance? Then your government will now spend massive amounts of tax money to create, expand, or update an emergency ventilator stockpile. Because that's the responsible thing to do after Covid-19 continues to demonstrate that the long underestimated threat of global pandemics is as real as the consequences of ventilator shortages. And that next time could be much worse.
Your direct benefit from a Global Crisis Ventilator program? These ventilators would make a ventilator stockpile expansion 80+ percent cheaper, allowing the purchase of twice the number of ventilators for less than half the tax money. While helping to save millions of lives.
If you live in any other country, chances are that ventilator access is patchy at best. A Global Crisis Ventilator program would change that.
But US$ 1,000 is still a lot of money for a ventilator in many regions, even if it's just a fraction of the usual cost of ventilators. That's where the option of cross-subsidies comes in. One simple example: Mass-produced Global Crisis Ventilators should have a unit cost of less than 10% of the sale price of a common ventilator. If they were sold for 20% of the cost of a common stockpile ventilator, they would still create massive savings for high-income countries, while at the same time one ventilator sold for this price would cover the costs for a second one that can be given away for free to NGOs or financially less fortunate countries.
This way, combining the needs of countries at different stages of development makes it possible to save millions of lives all over the world. And billions of $ at the same time.
Another option is the sponsoring of ventilators. Companies can demonstrate social responsibility and commitment by sponsoring live saving ventilators and grace them with beautiful decals. Below you can see some examples of what that could look like on our LEO ventilator case:
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