Vietnam accelerating ventilator production

Photo: Thanh Tung

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has requested the Ministry of Health (MoH) and related agencies to speed up producing medical equipment to fight against the pandemic, which originated in China over 100 days ago.

One of the first scientists who met the government’s appeal is Tran Ngoc Phuc, an overseas Vietnamese scientist living in Japan. Phuc and his colleagues have been co-operating with Vietnamese partners to transfer technology to produce ventilators in Vietnam. Phuc is now president of Metran Co., Ltd., which manufactures ventilators and artificial respirators. Metran has headquarters in Japan and a plant in Vietnam’s Binh Duong province.

According to Phuc, the product selected for manufacturing in Vietnam is a simple and low-cost breathing machine model that can be used by both children and the elderly. Due to its small size the machine can be even used in remote areas.

Phuc said that there will be around 2,000 ventilators produced in the next six weeks, with an increase to 10,000-15,000 after that time. “Vietnam is desperately in need of ventilators. I needed to take action right away before it was too late to help the country to cope with the pandemic,” Phuc said.

Van Thinh Phat Holding Group and Van Lang University have signed a contract with Metran to provide finance for manufacturing the 2,000 ventilators.

Currently, 16 countries have contacted Metran to transfer the technology for manufacturing ventilators including the United States, France, Italy, Spain, and India. The company is also working with McKinsey & Company to carry out technology transfer for other clients.

Meanwhile, Vingroup has also started to produce ventilators and body thermometers to serve the domestic market. According to its plan, the group will provide the MoH with 5,000 non-invasive ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients in Vietnam.

For production, Vingroup signed a licence agreement with US-based Medtronic to use its design for the PB560 ventilator, and also began researching a non-invasive ventilator based on the community-shared design by MIT University. The ventilators’ components will be sourced externally and internally.

Vingroup’s vice chairwoman Le Thi Thu Thuy said that the group has an advantage of having both the VinFast automobile factory and VinSmart electronics factory. “We can manufacture both large and mechanical parts as well as rare, smaller parts at the same time. We also have excellent design engineers to transform the conceptual and 2D designs into detailed and complete designs required by the manufacturers,” Thuy said.

It is expected that the further batches of components for the non-invasive ventilator will arrive imminently.

VinFast said the cost of components for each thermometer was VND16 million ($700), much lower than other machines on the market. The group estimated the component cost for a non-invasive ventilator at about VND22 million ($950) and for an invasive ventilator at VND160 million ($6,950).

With the capacity of VinFast and VinSmart, the group can produce up to 45,000 non-invasive ventilators and 10,000 invasive ventilators per month and support the country’s urgent need to prepare for the worst if the coronavirus spreads to a larger scale.