News

The breathe team visits a hospital in South Africa

Leonie and Thomas from the breathe team visited a rural hospital in the Mpumalanga province in South Africa to learn more about the context in which the breathe ventilator could be used and to collect feedback on our latest prototype from local doctors and nurses.

South Africa’s Gini-index is the highest in the world, that means the differences between rich and poor are bigger than anywhere else in the world. This makes it a unique setting: while some people are extremely wealthy and live up to high-income standards, a large part of the population is extremely poor. This also holds for the health care system. Even though advanced health care centers exist, most of the population does not have access to it. People walk hours to the next rural hospital, just to wait there the whole day and to be sent back in the evening. This is especially true for critical care in low-resource settings. Critical care capacities are mostly concentrated to urban settings in South Africa, and as such are often not reachable for the patients in rural areas. Even though transport via an ambulance or on rare occasions even via helicopter is generally possible, the availability of expertise, technology, and infrastructure to prepare critical patients for long transports of several hours on bumpy roads is not guaranteed.

To better understand how devices such as the breathe ventilator can be beneficial in emergency and transport situations in low-resource settings, Leonie and Thomas organized a training course for local doctors and nurses on airway management, oxygenation, and ventilation, conducted by a South African training organization. “Seeing how emergency care in a low-resource hospital works from the inside really helped us to understand the challenges that exist there. Like this, we can further improve the design of our ventilator in the future and better adapt it to the specific needs of the doctors and nurses on the ground”, says Leonie.

Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Lumpe

for the approved fundings

• external page BRIDGE Proof-of-Concept and
• external page SASBI Africa Residency Programme .

Congratulations to Leonie Korn

for the approved funding ETH4D Research to Action Grant.

“breathe” ventilator’s exhibition & demo at the ETH Treffpunkt Science City on November 28th

To participate and read more about the event please see here.

“breathe” ventilator at the “Together for the SDGs” exhibit

To learn more about the event please see here.

"breathe" ventilator at the ETH Industry Day 2021

Please see the article published by ETH for Development.

User needs survey on transport ventilators in low-resource settings

To learn more please visit here or to participate please visit https://evaluation-app1.let.ethz.ch/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=761H6p71 .

"breathe" among innovations inspired by the COVID-19 crisis

Please see the Download article (PDF, 139 KB) published by Le Temps.

Innosuisse - Swiss Innovation Agency supports "breathe" project

Please read the external page article published by Innosuisse.

Dialogue Series: Innovating in Times of Crisis

Please see the Interview with the Swiss Ambassador to the US, His Excellency Jacques Pitteloud:

ETH Industry Relations office is promoting the “breathe” project

Please see the video published by ETH News for Industry.

Best wishes for the holidays from the breathe team!

It has been nine intensive months since we started the “breathe” project. During this time, we overcame many technical and technological challenges, juggled our work between home office and laboratory while always remaining flexible and adjusting to ever-changing epidemiological situation; we had many fantastic and inspirational Zoom discussions with our collaborators and supporters, and the project that started through serendipity in the first week of the Swiss lockdown grew beyond our imagination. Today we are proudly working on the next prototype of our low-cost ventilator, which includes extended functionalities. As the year comes to the end, we reflect on the past months, celebrate our successes and hope for a brighter future, where everyone has access to essential health-care services. We would like to thank everyone, who is supporting us on this amazing and ambitious journey and we would like to wish you Happy Holidays and all the best for the New Year 2021!               
 

Last Tuesday (September 29th) we received a very special visit from the Ukraine's ambassador to Switzerland, His Excellency Artem Rybchenko. During the meeting, we had an opportunity to demonstrate the ETH Ventilator "breathe" in action using an artificial lung and to discuss the current COVID-19 situation in Switzerland and Ukraine as well as the urgency for ventilators in the low-income countries. The ETH "breathe" team together with the Ukrainian partner is currently working on the development of the improved prototype for the high quality, low-cost, portable ventilator, which could respond to the increased global demand for ventilators and support patients in the low-resource settings.  

Report on "breathe" and our collaboration with the Ukraine broadcast on Radio Television Suisse (in French):

external page https://rts.ch/play/tv/redirect/detail/11540802

"breathe" ventilator was listed among the top recent Swiss innovations on the occasion of the Swiss National Day

Please read the external page article of FDFA.

Testing new ventilators

Please read the article published on ETH News.

FDFA supports ETH Zurich project to produce affordable ventilators for developing countries

Please read the external page press release of FDFA.

Working at the Heart of the Action

Article published external page here  

Testing ventilator systems

Please read the article published on ETH News.