Domestic medical ventilators made by four Turkish companies are getting rave reviews from doctors and are a better buy than imported models, according to a top adviser on the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Sema Kultufan Turan, a member of the board advising Turkey's Health Ministry on the outbreak, touted the quality of the historic model. The ventilators are crucially important to help coronavirus patients with serious respiratory problems, she told Anadolu Agency (AA) Friday.
"We have sufficient medical ventilators in hospitals that give high-quality service. In that, we are different from other countries," said Turan, adding, "We have seen that our domestically produced medical ventilator can compete with those imported ones, and can even do so better."
Turan said the device – developed by Turkish firms Arçelik, ASELSAN, Baykar and Biosys – is offered at a much better price than imported models. "I believe it's quite important to produce such a product," she said. "Our ventilator can become much better than others with some additional software. Patient-ventilator compatibility is really perfect. It's a ventilator that can offer many different treatments and oxygen treatment options. It was a historic moment for us when we first used the ventilator on a patient. We also saw how successful the ventilator was."
Turkish tech firm Biosys developed the device, and after the pandemic hit, Turkish firms mobilized to start mass production with the coordination of the Technology and Industry Ministry. Turkish engineers managed to set up mass production of the first indigenous intensive care ventilator in just 14 days.
The firms delivered some 100 ventilators for the inauguration of Istanbul's giant new Başakşehir City Hospital on Monday.
Under the same initiative, the group will deliver 5,000 more by the end of May, as they promised a month ago.
The coronavirus death toll in Turkey reached 2,491 as of Thursday, with 101,790 cases to date.
After originating in China last December, COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world.
The pandemic has killed some 191,200 people, with total infections exceeding 2.72 million, according to figures compiled by the U.S.' Johns Hopkins University.
