Jayadeva hospital installs bio-purifier in ICU to reduce Covid-19 load in air

In order to reduce the viral load in the air and boost the confidence of doctors working in intensive care and operation theatres, the state-run Jayadeva hospital has installed a bio-purifier machine in its ICU.

Dr C N Manjunath, Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, said bio-purifiers were best suited for closed places such as operation theatres, intensive coronary units, cinema halls, auditoriums and restaurants. "The purifier has six steps of purifying the air and filtering our bacteria and viruses for sanitisation. It works only in closed spaces. Particles as small as 0.3 microns are also filtered. All biological impurities such as viral, bacterial, fungal and ultrafine particles are fully captured and eliminated," he told DH.

The machine sanitises the air with six filters: mechanical, chemical (has sodium hypochlorite), ozone, ultraviolet, plasma and HEPA. It significantly reduces the exposure to viral load, especially for those conducting aerosol procedures like dental, ENT, intubation, bronchoscopy and endoscopy where the chances of exposure will be high.

Jayadeva hospital currently has 22 Covid-19 patients in its ICU. It has four cardiac ICUs and four surgery ICUs. The coronavirus ward has 15 cardiac, Covid-positive patients.

"For now, our basement ICU has been installed with a bio-purifier that's been provided free of charge. We are planning to install a bio-purifier for another ICU," Dr. Manjunath added. Different models of this bio-purifier are available for anywhere between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 15 lakh.

The bio-purifier has been designed and developed by Radarc Medical Innovations Private Limited, a startup. The startup's managing director Dr. Murali Mohan, who's also the head of neurosurgery at Sagar Hospital, Bengaluru, said the bio-purifier had also been installed at a hospital in Gadag, in the neuro-ICU at Sagar Hospital and will soon be supplied to Siddaganga Hospital in Tumakuru.

The bio-purifier was tested in a laboratory setting with a virus one-fourth the size of the novel coronavirus, including 15 pathogens, Dr. Mohan added.