Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM):A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Production in response to the COVID-19 Pandemics

Galbiati Cristiano; Walter Bonivento; Mauro Caravati; Marco Razeti; Sandro DeCecco; Giuliana Fiorillo; Federico Gabriele; Roberto Tartaglia; Alessandro Razeto; Davide Sablone; Eugenio Scapparone; Gemma Testera; Marco Rescigno; Davide Franco; Iza Kochanek; Cary Kendziora; Stephen H. Pordes; Hanguo Wang; Andrea Ianni; Art McDonald; L. Molinari Tosatti; T. Dinon; M. Malosio; D. Minuzzo; A. Zardoni; A. Prini

The imperative need to treat a large number of patients affected by SARS-CoV-2 has motivated the consideration of a reliable, fail-safe, and easy to operate mechanical ventilator that can be produced quickly on a massive scale. We introduce a novel mechanical ventilator (Mechanical Ventilator Milano, MVM), inspired by the Manley ventilator [11] . In 1961, Roger Manley "suggested the possibility of using the pressure of the gases from the anaesthetic machine as the motive power for a simple apparatus to ventilate the lungs of the patients in the operating theatre" [12] . We have tried to design the MVM with the same principle of simplicity in mind. The main difference is the use of electricallydriven pneumatic valves instead of mechanical switches to ease large scale production. The MVM does not include a system to measure the tidal volume provided to the patient with each breathing cycle, but rather a system to mea-sure the peak and average expiratory flow rate. The MVM adheres as much as possible to the guidelines for "Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System (RMVS)" [13] recently released by the UK Medicine & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.