MIT Develops Cheap, Open Source Ventilator for Coronavirus Treatment

by Ryan Whitwam

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen, medical centers around the world have started running short of vital supplies like masks, gloves, and disinfectants. Hospitals are also running critically low on ventilators, which can keep COVID-19 patients alive if the disease becomes severe. An MIT team has developed an open-source ventilator called the MIT E-Vent that could get regulatory approval soon.

The E-Vent is based on a project that started almost a decade ago as part of the MIT Precision Machine Design course. Unlike the expensive mechanical ventilators at hospitals, this is a manual ventilator that personnel would need to operate by hand. Students designed the device for use in rural areas and developing nations where mechanical ventilators were not available or reliable. The team built a prototype (above) and published a paper, but the project didn’t move beyond that.

With ventilators in such short supply, the abandoned project has been revived and submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under an “Emergency Use Authorization.” The FDA is conducting tests with pigs and could approve the design in the near future.

When MIT students did the initial work a decade ago, they estimated the device would cost about $100…