Chinese ventilator makers are racing against the clock to guarantee adequate supplies of the life-saving machine, as global demand surges due to the novel coronavirus.
With the world’s ventilator demand now 10 times what is available, an estimate shows 960,000 patients in the United States will need ventilator support due to COVID-19, yet the nation only has about 200,000 machines.
China’s ventilator suppliers can meet a fifth of global needs. After receiving orders for about 20,000 ventilators from other countries, they are running full steam ahead to meet the surging demand in the foreign market.
Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd., the country’s top medical device maker based in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province, called for its major technical personnel to resume production on Jan. 26, two days after Chinese New Year’s Eve.
“Our daily output capacity of ventilators have increased to 1,200 pieces from about 300 ones in early February,” said Jiang Dong, marketing manager with BMC Medical Co., Ltd., a ventilator manufacturer based in Beijing.
Jiang added that the company receives hundreds of the machines from other countries, with tens of thousands of ventilators scheduled to be produced.
“We have extended our working hours to 10 p.m. recently,” Jiang said, noting the company continues operating on weekends, and if necessary, will send staff members of other departments to the production lines to maximize production capacity.
Employees at Beijing Aeonmed Co., Ltd., another respiratory medical equipment enterprise in Beijing, are also toiling day and night to produce ventilators. The firm’s delivery of machines in the past three months exceeds that of last year.
Jiangsu Yuyue Medical Equipment & Supply Co., Ltd., launched a smart plant with robot arms to produce 700 ventilators per day, an increase of 400.
China has 21 invasive ventilator makers, and eight of them have obtained the European Unio’s compulsory CE marking, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The country has exported 16,000 ventilators since March 1, customs official Jin Hai told a recent press conference.
