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OpenVentPk is the only open source ventilator project in Pakistan which has a serious team of engineers, medical practitioners & 3D printing companies.

Large scale manufacturing teams are also onboard for industrial scaling later.

21/01/2021

Pakistan's first open source emergency ventilator.

14/06/2020

Open Source ventilator Pakistan (www.openventpk.com)
Update # 17

Openventpk team performed a very basic level of ANIMAL LUNG testing at our Lab at around 6pm on 13th June, 2020. This test was lead by Dr. Akber from a private hospital and Dr Ali Shoaib from another hospital. The emergency ventilator was tested on a GOAT LUNG to check the pressure variations of our ventilator. We were able to successfully demonstrate that this ventilator can work smoothly on a biological lung with the required limited functionality.

This was our 6th trial and calibration activity. The results of the tests and trials performed have been published in the report on the documentation of ventilator design tab on our website.

We do have a few more tests to go. Keep us in your prayers.

12/06/2020

Open Source ventilator Pakistan (www.openventpk.com)
Update # 16

The Openventpk team was fortunate to be able to perform calibration and testing of the Openventpk emergency ventilator at a private hospital. We are thankful to them for assisting us in conducting calibration and testing of our emergency ventilator with their gas flow analyzers and lung simulators.

This was our 5th trial and calibration activity.

The 1st trial was done at Dow University of Health Sciences Official on 18th May.
The 2nd trial was done at Dow University of Health Sciences Official on 3rd June.
The 3rd trial was done at Pakistan Engineering Council Karachi on 4th June.
The 4th trial was done at The Disrupt Labs (The lab where this ventilator is being built) on 5th June.
The 5th visit (Calibration and testing support) was done at a private hospital

We are in talks with a few manufacturers for mass scale production ONCE we get approval from PEC and DRAP. If you are an investor and interested for mass scale production of low cost emergency ventilators, please connect. Share it with friends who are interested. We highly prefer a NO PROFIT NO LOSS setting as this emergency ventilator but we are open for other proposals as well just to make sure that the efforts of our volunteers and donors can be actually materialized and this ventilator can be used.

We will be doing a very basic level of ANIMAL testing tomorrow at our Lab at around 6pm. The Doctors of our team Dr. Akber from Agha Khan hospital and Doctor Ali Shoaib from Liaqat national hospital will be conducting a trial on a GOAT LUNG to check the pressure variations of our ventilator.

We are opening up international collaboration with open source initiatives worldwide as well. If you know of any such initiative. please connect and our team would get back to you.

These are many many Volunteers who have contributed in different ways to this project, We have our own website and social media pages which mention our complete team. You can check out at www.openventpk.com.

We are still not there yet but we hope to achieve a bare minimum functionality in a low cost setting for mass production inshallah. Your prayers and support needed.

03/06/2020

Open Source ventilator Pakistan (www.openventpk.com)
Update # 15

We had our second trial with the regulatory bodies (PEC) at Dow University Hospital Ojha Campus today i.e. on 3rd June, 2020. Alhamdulilah.. We have been CLEARED for 12 hours endurance testing at PEC regional office for tomorrow. i.e. 4th june, 2020.

The regulatory bodies have strictly instructed us not to discuss the details until the reports are finalized and official. However, the good news is that we have been CLEARED for endurance testing. Once we clear the endurance testing, we would go for clinical and human trials inshallah.

We are working on a more compact design as well and are short on Funds. We have exhausted around 10 lac rupees over the R&D of the first design. This money had come from donations of different people. If would be great if you can support the initiative with funds as well. Dr. Bilal Siddiqui is the focal person for this.

We have been in discussions with international open source initiatives and inshallah would be sharing our inputs and learning from them as well. If you know of any international partners, we would be glad to connect.

These are many many Volunteers who have contributed in different ways to this project, We have our own website and social media pages which mention our complete team. You can check out at www.openventpk.com.

Your prayers and support always requested especially for TOMORROW endurance testing at PEC regional office.

19/05/2020

Open Source ventilator Pakistan (www.openventpk.com)
Update # 14

Alhamdulilah, the OpenVentPk team had its first official trial with the regulatory bodies (PEC) at Dow University Hospital Ojha Campus with PEC rep. Sir Riasat along with Dr. Hamid and Tariq Sahab on 18th May, 2020.

I have attached the initial trial document. The summary is as follows:

1. We showed them VCV mode, PCV mode with different breaths and tidal volumes and pressures. These modes were comprehensively tested and were passed along with configuration of alarms.

2. The oxygen and air pipes that needed to connected through hospital outlets couldn't get connected because our pipes did not have the standard outlets. So we could not verify the FiO2 mixing and control mechanism. We will be solving the connector issue in the next trial.

3. The team checked the assist control mode with a syringe at the end of test lung. Our system was NOT able to catch the trigger and perform assist control. We will need to work on this to resolve the issue.

4. We also requested them to give us a demo of the actual ventilator operation and Dr. Hamid was kind enough to walk us through different modes.

5. Riasat sahab asked for our documentation which was done comprehensively and duly provided. Link to the documentation is also attached for reference. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Oq0x736uvv4xvAyjTnndLkvPGh0h1s6R?usp=sharing

6. They wanted an inhale safety valve incorporated as well. We said we will include it once we get the PEEP diverter and we will also be able to separate the inhale and exhale circuit.

We would say that we have achieved 75% of the required work alhamdulilah based on the reviews we received. Till now not even 1 ventilator design have been completely certified by regulatory bodies in Pakistan.

A big thanks to the perfect team we have. The team leads especially didn't sleep for two nights in preparing for the trial. Special appreciation to Hamza Azeem, Sohaib Ashraf, Tayyab Alam, Hashir Azeem Chaudhary, Hassan Bhai, Rabi Imran,

Special thanks to Dr. Akber from AKU and Sir Azeem from Signaxes for accompanying us on the visit.

Another key contributor were our UI guys along with Danish Karim Iqbal, Ali and Aqil who made sure that our graphs look good.

And of course sir Bilal Siddiqui for facilitating the whole R7D process and making sure that we went into the trial earlier so that we can plan for the next phase.

These are many many other volunteers who have contributed in different ways to this project, We have our own website and social media pages which mention our complete team. You can check out at www.openventpk.com.

Your prayers and support always requested.

11/05/2020

Alhamdulillah, team is working continuously to design Pakistan's first and only open source ventilator.

06/05/2020

OpenVentPk team is moving into the calibrations and assembly phase alhamdulilah.

1. Our Hardware team is working for the development of Reservoir for FiO2 control and calibrating the oxygen sensors and assembling of hardware parts.

2. Our embedded team decided that we have done the rapid prototyping on Ardino Mega but now for a robust system we are moving towards STM32F3 controller.

3. The graphs are being calibrated for the UI and a parrallel UI is being developed on Android to be displayed on Tablet. The data pipeline from tablet to server for post processing is also in process.

4. Technical documentation in progress along with discussions from hospitals and regulatory bodies.Populating our details on website, github and making animations for the whole structure.

Those who are involved with projects can understand how critical things get when you are involved in sensitive projects. the things we thought would not matter at all can take your days when you actually do implement them. We are racing against time and resources but we are committed to take this through inshallah and become the first successful open source project for the country.

Keep us in your prayers.

Here is a current document of our progress.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nylppH_xegDzcRgCWa85zKyZYWACbjtP/view?usp=sharing

If you would like to contribute. Add your details here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PfxblJfeVo9WGIUSiz_yQkhYF2OCvRRPal1zllWFMHY/edit?usp=sharing

Address

The Disrupt Labs, Suite B-6, Near Kamran Chowrangi, Block 3-A Gulistan-e-Johar, Sindh
Karachi
75290

Telephone

+923368515895

Website

http://www.openventpk.com/

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How It All Began!

The Covid-19 novel coronavirus epidemic has taken the world by storm. From humble beginnings in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, it has gone on to infect more than a million people with a case fatality rate of more than 5%. Complications may include pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). There is no known vaccine or specific antiviral drug treatment. It is estimated that 30% of Covid 19 hospitalized patients are likely to require mechanical ventilation [1]. However, there is a huge gap which appears to be widening every day between supply and demand of ventilators, so much so that doctors are forced to make life and death decisions due to shortage thereof [2]. The price of ventilators has jumped by 150% due to unbridled free market mechanics [3]. This has driven engineers across to world to find cheap, affordable and quick solutions to expensive branded ventilators where traditional manufacturers are struggling to meet demand. Many, but not all, of these efforts are open sourced by the inventors, meaning that they can be manufactured and improved upon without the fuss and commercial greed associated with patents and licenses in this hour of need for humanity.

THE INITIATIVE:

With the advent of this pandemic in Pakistan, a small group of engineers started preparing the technological response of this nation with limited resources on volunteer basis. What started off as disparate and isolated efforts soon gathered steam and snowballed into Pakistan Against Corona-Volunteers (PAC-V), a coalition of volunteers searching for engineering solutions in the fight against corona virus. The central ethos is as follows:

The (PAC-V) headed by Dr. Bilal Siddiqui, former chief engineer at PAC Kamra compiled a team specifically to work towards developing mechanical ventilators in Islamabad. A parallel effort was also started by Muhammad Umair Arif from Bahria University and Dr. Abid Kareem from Usman Institute of technology in Karachi in developing “Low cost ventilators”. The two groups rapidly grew with more than a 500 people from various background and eventually merged their efforts into a single initiative called OpenVentPk.

In the span of a few days, starting on 15th of March 2020, literally hundreds of engineers, medics, programmers and manufacturers combined forces in the open-source spirit to serve the suffering humanity. The authors claim neither credit nor ownership and freely transfer all rights to replicate, improve, make and provide to the world. We are compatriots of humanity and believe in the fundamental right to life and happiness without recourse to profiteering.

OpenVentPk is archived at GitLab and GitHub. When we started, we were perhaps the only team working on ventilators in the country. In a meeting called by the engineering council (PEC) on the 24th of March, there were six teams (including two existing products patented in the USPTO). In another week, the initiative we took had mushroomed to 50 teams nationwide. While we wholeheartedly welcome this outpouring of engineering vigor, we are happy to be precursors of this rapid development, and readily incorporate all open-source projects on ventilators in the country that have joined forces with us.

OpenVentPk is the only open source ventilator project in Pakistan which has a serious team of engineers, medical practitioners, 3D printing companies. Large scale manufacturing teams are also onboard for industrial scaling later.

We have a very committed team of professional and extremely competent people from all over the country and beyond to serve for this cause. During this lockdown situation, this team has been solving problems as they come in a very coordinated manner for the fulfillment of the objective.

The Overall team is lead by Muhammad Umair, Asst. Prof at Bahria University, a PhD scholar at NUST and co-founder of The Disrupt Labs. The R&D is being coordinated and facilitated by Dr. Bilal Siddiqui, former chief engineer at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra, The 3-D printing team is being lead by Mr. Tayyab from Xplorer 3D with Abdullah, Farrukh and shaheer. Another team lead by Mr. Rabi from Grit3D with Azeem and Asad. The mechanical assembly of compression mechanism is being lead by Mr. Jamal from Aceforge. The mathematical modeling team is lead by Sarim from University of waterloo along with Noman. The Embedded software team is being lead by Mr. Sohaib Ashraf along with Dr. Sharif, Sir Wajid and Usman. The embedded hardware team is being lead by Mr. Hamza Azeem from Signaxes and the team includes Hashir Azeem, Aitezaz, Kamran, Munum and Faraz. The problem of finding sensors was being handled by Zeeshan Abbasi from mparsec and Asher. The Mechanical calibrations team is being lead by Mr. Hassan from PPL, Ghufran from Shell Pakistan, Farooq from Pakistan Oxygen company and Shahjahan. The UI team is being lead by Danish, former R&D Manager at Wavetech along with Anas and Data science expert abdul Wahid. Technical advice and input being given by Azeem Anwar and Dr. Abid Kareem. The Medical Input team is being lead by Dr. Ali Shoaib from Liaqat National Hospital, Dr. Mehreen and Dr. Akbar from Agha Khan Hospital. The local testing and compliance is being lead by Nadeem From Fast University along with Ateeq & Rafique. The detailed documentation is being done by Shamoon and Atif. The procurement was facilitated by Danish from Suparco. The industrial onboarding and mass scaling process is being lead by Osama Ehtisham. The current prototype is being built at The Disrupt Labs in Karachi funded by Saima Rizvi. The logo was facilitated by Mudassir from Jafrix, the domain & hosting was purchased by Yasir and website is being built by Adeel from Bizintel, Arsalan and Fahad from Pluton. Hira Wajahat from Stimulus is looking at international communications. There are more and more people joining in and the complete list is on www.openventpk.com

OpenVentPk team plans to develop the minimally clinically acceptable ventilator to be used in hospitals to confer therapeutic benefit on a patient suffering with ARDS, used in the initial care of patients requiring urgent ventilation. It is proposed these ventilators would be for short-term stabilization for a few hours, but this may be extended up to 1-day use for a patient in extremis as the bare minimum function. Ideally it would also be able to function as a broader function ventilator which could support a patient through a number of days, when more advanced ventilator support becomes necessary.

Pakistan Engineering Council has identified the bare minimum requirements to be according to the requirements set by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of the UK government. The guidelines published on 20th March, 2020 are entitled as “Rapidly manufactured ventilation system specifications” [4]. Our core focus is to meet the “Mandatory requirements” set by these guidelines within 4 weeks starting from 23rd March, 2020 onwards.

We have got many resources onboard with us now. Initially we did have some issues but now there are enough people onboard. However, you can look at the progress and see where your skills are likely to be useful. For-example, if you have connections with PEC or DRAP or other regulatory authorities or if you have people who are interested in mass manufacturing.

Secondly, we have enough funds to cater for the requirements by several volunteers at the moment, but once our prototype crosses the approvals phase, we would be needing a lot of support in terms of manufacturing ability to make sure we are able to realize this dream. And that means a lot of funds to actually build a large number of these. If you think you cannot contribute in anyway, we would love that you sincerely pray for our team that May Allah reward them for their efforts. That would be one of the best gifts we can ask for.

You can contact the team:

Muhammad Umair Airf Team Lead +92-336-8515895 umair.arif.m@gmail.com

Dr. Bilal Siddiqui +92-335-3461598 pacvresponse@gmail.com

References:

1. Ferguson N, Laydon D, Nedjati-Gilani G, et al. “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand United Kingdom2020” [Available from:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gidafellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf (Accessed on 05 April 2020).

2. “I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Doctors Without Enough Ventilators Are Being Told Whom To Save During The Coronavirus Pandemic'”, Buzzfeed, Apr 4, 2020 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/ventilator-shortage-new-york-hospitals-coronavirus

3. “Cuomo says ventilators cost $50,000—up from $20,000—as states compete for the devices”, Forbes, 30 Mar 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/03/30/cuomo-says-ventilators-cost-50000-up-from-20000-as-states-compete-for-the-devices/#143c42c378b3

4. Rapidly manufactured ventilator system specification. (2020, March 20). Retrieved March 24, 2020, from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-ventilator-supply-specification/rapidly-manufactured-ventilator-system-specification

5. Abdul Mohsen Al Husseini et al. “Design and Prototyping of a Low-cost Portable Mechanical Ventilator”, Proceedings of the 2010 Design of Medical Devices Conference DMD2010 April 13-15, 2010, Minneapolis, MN, USA.