The Bengaluru-based Coeo Labs launched a revolutionary device to treat respiratory distress of new-born babies in February 2019. The device called Saans is affordable and has the following unique features:
- Multi-Power mode including manual
- Minimum skill Needed, only 1 attendant
- Aligned with various transport mode in
the India - User determined Oxygen + Air mixture
- Passive humidification
A company note states that 1.14 million babies die of respiratory distress yearly, yet the majority of these deaths are easily preventable by the application of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP). Even in a low-income country, a well-designed bubble CPAP improves survival by 24 to 65%.
Unfortunately, a significant number of newborns and infants do not have access to this technology during transport nor is electricity and skilled manpower widely available at these care centers.
Currently, all neonatal transport CPAP machines (including bubble CPAPs) require electrical power or compressed gases to function – neither of which is easily available in low-resource settings.
Cost
Nitesh Jangir, Co-founder of
Saans, he says, has already saved more than 100 lives in two months. It is currently being used in 5 healthcare facilities which include hospitals of government, corporate and medical college.
The biggest challenge he says is getting
Saans was one of the winning projects of the 3M-CII Young Innovators Challenge Awards 2016 in the Non-technical category.
The core team of Saans includes product designers and mechanical engineers and an electronics engineer; the team is supported by clinical experts from St. John’s Hospital (Bangalore), Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA) and Mbarara University (Uganda).
Saans will be helpful in nursing homes, small maternity hospitals, community healthcare centers, and primary healthcare centers.
The market is estimated to be
Their total requirement was estimated at about 200,000 devices in 2018.
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