Indian Navy's NavRakshak to help in fighting COVID-19

Indian Navy's indigenously-made PPE, NavRakshak, is helping in fighting COVID-19 in a better and effective way.

A PPE protects health care workers from COVID-19 by minimising their exposure to a biological agent or a virus.

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But it is hard to imagine the state of professionals wearing a multi-layered coverall PPE while treating COVID-19 patients and working like this from six to 12 hours in hot and humid weather conditions.

The NavRakshak PPE, with its innovative fabric material, has added new hopes to the medical world and health care professionals since it is made from the perspective of healthcare workers.

“When it comes to PPE, everyone is concerned only about the water, blood, body fluid-resistant levels of the material used in making PPE but the comfort and breathability of such PPE is something few have paid attention to. This PPE is made by a doctor, keeping in mind a doctor’s pain,” said Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Arnab Ghosh from Naval Medical Specialist of Innovation Cell, Institute of Naval Medicine Mumbai, the man behind the conceptualisation of the low-cost PPE.

Navrakshak, which translates to a “novel protector”, has two distinctive factors; optimal protectiveness and optimal breathability.

Lieutenant Commander Arnab Ghosh said: “As a doctor, I can say, most of the PPE available in the Indian market is ignoring the ‘breathability’ factor. Because of this, the health care workers get easily exhausted due to the prolonged use of substandard, low-quality PPE.”

Breathability is the ability of the fabric to permit water vapour to pass through and prevent the entry of water. The comfort properties of a fabric depend on its ability to transmit water and vapour from the body to prevent the accumulation of liquid on the skin. In this way, the thermal energy generated by the body will be transmitted, and vapour moisture will be diffused, resulting in a comfortable condition.

In order to meet the unexpected demand due to Coronavirus pandemic, many NGOs and organisations have already been actively involved in procuring and supplying PPE to the aid of hospitals.

NavRakshak uses a non-woven advanced quality fabric of specific GSM with a certain stitching technique.
The unique character of the fabric which is used is its strong uniform structure that can act as an excellent barrier for liquids, particles, blood and body fluids.
Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell (IPFC) of the Ministry of Defence has already filed a patent for the innovative cost-effective PPE developed by Indian Navy to enable rapid mass production of NavRakshak PPE.

“It took me seven days to make this PPE. I had to do extensive research about a wide variety of fabrics, had to study about different medical garments like headgears, gloves etc. Due to the lockdown, it was even difficult for us to obtain raw materials. After much research I arrived at this new technology”, said Lt Cdr Ghosh.

A pilot batch of PPE has already been produced at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai. Innovation Cell, Institute of Naval Medicine, Mumbai and the Naval Dockyard Mumbai have collaborated to design and produce the PPE.

The new technology has already been tested by INMAS (Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences) Delhi, a DRDO organisation tasked with the testing and certification of PPE. The PPE passed with 6/6 Synthetic blood penetration resistance test pressure (Government of India mandates minimum 3/6 and above level as per ISO 16603 standard). It is thus certified to be mass-produced and used in clinical COVID situations.