Why ventilators are crucial for treating coronavirus infection

• COVID-19 cases report acute respiratory disease syndrome resulting due to the failure of the lungs.
  
  
• Ventilators are crucially needed to create the life-support system the patients will need during the treatment.
  
  
• Here we understand the indispensable role of ventilators while treating COVID-19 cases.
  

Deaths due to COVID-19 infection soars day by day. It is evident that the malignant virus is going to take a huge toll on many more lives. In most cases of coronavirus infection, the patients experience difficulty in breathing. Hence ventilators are the need of the hour if we have to see the patients alive through the treatment phase. A dreadful fact is that in the global medical industry of our times, there are not enough number of ventilators available to meet the needs of the rapidly surging number of coronavirus cases.

What happens to COVID-19 patients

We live because we breathe in and breathe out. Breathing supplies the oxygen necessary for body metabolism in the cellular level. When we inhale, the atmospheric air gets inside our system and reaches the trachea or the windpipe. The trachea bifurcates and then branches into smaller tubules ending in miniscule tubes of less than one millimeter supplying the air to alveoli or the smallest segment of the lungs. The lining we can find in each of the sacs is very thin that the air floating through them is infused into the red blood corpuscles.

COVID-19 infection challenges this basic breathing mechanism of our bodies. This virus causes a secretion of yellow fluid that is gummy in nature. The exuding fluid fills up the air sacs creation a congestion and reducing the space available for oxygen to enter them. With the disease worsening, more and more sacs are thus filled up with the fluid changing the texture of the lungs. The result is what is known as acute respiratory disease syndrome. This condition can become lethal and that is why COVID-19 proves deadly in many cases. When the disease worsens in the patients, ventilators are crucially needed to ensure their lung function is supplemented externally and the oxygen supply is maintained through the phase of the treatment till the patient recovers and the lungs take over the breathing.

What ventilators do to COVID-19 patients

Specially trained staff of the healthcare industry insert a 10 inch long tube through the mouth and windpipe of the patient and the other end is connected to a ventilator the ventilator can supply more oxygen into the lungs and the pressurized air is also useful to open up the lungs that have got stiff due to the fluid accumulation. The entire set up that happens in a hospital is called a life support system. The ventilators ensure that the vital organs of the body like the heart, brain and kidneys continue to receive the supply of oxygen. Though ventilators cannot fix the terrible damage that the virus can cause, they can help sustain the patients during the treatment.

Since the serious kind of ventilation given to a COVID-19 patient can be unbearable, most patients are put into what is known as a medically induced coma before connected to a ventilator. While several patients ventilated and treated for the virus die after returning home, the lucky ones survive and gain a rebirth. Since human lives are valuable, we need to depend on ventilators to support the COVID-19 treatment. The world is now looking for ways to manufacture or procure more ventilators that might be needed to support the surging number of COBID-19 cases.