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Rabat – American biomedical engineering company Medtronic has made available the full design specifications and manuals for its Puritan Bennett (PB) 560 portable ventilator hardware.
The design specifications are freely available around the world, announced Medtronic on Monday, March 30.
The company forfeited its commercial license for the ventilator design to allow countries to manufacture the critical medical device and respond efficiently to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“Recognizing ventilator demand has surpassed supply, starting today we are publicly sharing design specifications for our PB560 ventilator. This will allow participants across industries to evaluate options for rapid manufacturing in response to COVID-19,” reads a tweet from Medtronic.
The PB560 ventilator is a compact, lightweight piece of equipment that can be easily moved around and installed in a wide range of health facilities. The design was first introduced in 2010.
With the continuous rise in the numbers of COVID-19 across the globe, governments are taking exceptional measures to upgrade their health facilities and boost the production of medical respiratory devices.
The Moroccan government is no exception. On March 27, Morocco’s Ministry of Economy allocated MAD 2 billion ($200 million) from the Special Fund for the Management and Response to COVID-19 to upgrade the country’s health system.
The ministry is set to purchase over 1,000 recovery beds, 500 ventilators, 100,000 blood collection kits, and x-ray devices, among other medical supplies.
The purchases would increase Morocco’s intensive care capacity to 3,000 beds, revealed Head of Government Saad Eddine El Othmani.
In recent days, the country recorded a surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 574 cases at the time of writing, including 33 deaths and 15 recoveries.
An upgrade of health facilities would help Morocco prepare for all potential developments of the COVID-19 outbreak, including a potential further surge in cases.
