A very urgent requirement in the fight against the Corona Virus is the need to equip the front line health care professionals with comfortable PPEs, which can be produced indigenously at an affordable cost without much capital investment.

In helping the country fight the spread of the global pandemic COVID-19, all the three services including the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy have been playing a critical role. They have set up quarantine facilities and designing and developing new technologies that are easily affordable and `made in India’ completely. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) `NavRakshak’ which has been designed and produced by Indian Navy, is now going to be mass-produced to meet the ongoing countrywide demand of quality kits.

A very urgent requirement in the fight against the Corona Virus is the need to equip the front line health care professionals with comfortable PPEs, which can be produced indigenously at an affordable cost without much capital investment.

National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) has identified and licensed the manufacturing know-how of a PPE Suit — NavRakshak to five MSMEs — M/s Greenfield Vintrade Pvt Ltd (Kolkata), M/s Vaishnavi Global Pvt Ltd (Mumbai), M/s Bharat Silks (Bangalore), M/s Sure Safety (India) Ltd (Vadodara) and M/s Swaps Couture (Mumbai). These MSMEs are expected to mass-produce more than 10 million PPEs per year.

As has been reported by the Financial Express Online, this PPE kit was developed at the Innovation Cell of the Institute of Naval Medicine, INHS Asvini Hospital (Mumbai) of the Indian Navy. This was then tested by INMAS (Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences), at Delhi, a DRDO organization which was given the authority for testing and certification of PPE.

Know more about the Navy’s innovation

Naval Dockyard manufactures Innovative Portable Multi-feed Oxygen Manifold

The Naval Dockyard of Vishakhapatnam designed and manufactured a Multi-feed Oxygen Manifold (MOM), this can be used to supply oxygen to six patients from one cylinder. This is an ideal device for field and makeshift hospitals where permanent oxygen lines are not available.

So far five sets were set up at KGH Hospital, Vishakhapatnam, on a request from the District Collector, and Dean and Principal Andhra Medical College; 15 MOM devices have been handed over to Vishakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), Vishakhapatnam.

Naval Aircraft Yard (Kochi) fabricates Air Evacuation Stretcher Capsule

This special Air Evacuation Stretcher Capsule has been designed by the Indian Navy to facilitate insulated evacuation and transfer of COVID affected patients from islands and ships by aircraft and helicopters. Right from the designing stage the Command Medical authorities of Southern Naval Command, aviation experts of INS Garuda and the Naval Aircraft Yard Kochi was involved in this. The prototype was fabricated at the General Engineering Repair Facility at NAY(Kochi) using Aluminium, Perspex and Rubber incorporating facilities for oxygen supply including intubation.

Low cost Temperature Gun

Another Naval Dockyard, located in Mubai was behind the design and development of Infra Red based temperature sensor for screening large number of personnel entering the Dockyard. Through in-house resources, the Indian Navy has manufactured this at a cost of less than Rs 1000.

What is so special about this Thermal Temperature Gun?

This non-contact thermometer has a Infrared sensor and an LED display integrated with a microcontroller and runs on a 9V battery.

Remote Monitoring Facility – ICU Patient Parameters

A core team of two officers and four workers of Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam under Eastern Naval Command, have designed and implemented a solution for remote monitoring of Vital Parameters of patients in ICU.

According to the Indian Navy, the Audio Visual output of the bedside Patient Monitoring System has been converted to HDMI output and all 48 beds in ICU in a hospital were wired through a Digital Video Recorder. A big display was put outside the ICU for the staff to watch remotely and to monitor all patients simultaneously or selecting as required including zooming to one patient and an audio alarm if any vitals are going down.

Further, the same parameters through HDMI Ethernet converter have also been provided to the Doctors on their mobile over the internet and 48 patients in ICU at one time.