IIT Ropar develops design of negative pressure room to check spread of COVID-19

• The Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar has developed a design of a negative pressure room (NPR) to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 through air at isolation wards and testing labs, thus protecting the medical staff from getting infected.
• The Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar has developed a design of a negative pressure room (NPR) to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 through air at isolation wards and testing labs, thus protecting the medical staff from getting infected. The design and modelling of the NPR took shape after a group of professors, including that of IIT Ropar, decided to come up with a solution to protect the frontline health staff working at corona-virus isolation wards.
• He said South Korea managed to contain the spread of corona-virus to a large extent because of the NPR system.
• Mahajan said the low-cost NPR will help in protecting the health staff working at isolation wards.
• Meanwhile, Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank appreciated the IIT Ropar team for the invention.
• 'Congratulations to team @IITrpr led by Dhiraj K Mahajan for working out engineering aspects of Negative Pressure Rooms to create facilities for mass screening for Covid-19.
• It will help to contain the rapid spread of the virus,' the minister said on Twitter.
• Explaining the concept of negative pressure rooms, Mahajan said they are specially designed isolation rooms in hospitals and medical centers to prevent the transmission of viruses through air by patients.
• It includes a ventilation system that generates a negative pressure in the room and allows air to flow into the isolation room and escape from the room, carrying away the virus along, he said.
• 'It will prevent spreading of COVID-19 patients' droplets in the air if they are coughing in the room,' he explained.
• Mahajan said it will cost Rs 9,000 for setting up a negative pressure room with a dimension of 9X9X8 cubic feet for a patient.
• It mainly involves exhaust fans, fine grade plastic sheets etc.
• The IIT professor said inquiries about the NPR design have already been made by officials in West Bengal, adding they would soon make a prototype of the NPR.
• Mahajan, however, sought help from the Punjab government in giving them relaxation from curfew restrictions in sourcing necessary equipment for making the NPRs.
• Meanwhile, another team of researchers at IIT Ropar had developed a low-cost ventilator which can provide oxygen to two patients at a time.
• 'It can be used for automatic compression of Ambu bag used in manual resuscitator,' they said.