Medical ventilator

Seeking to stem the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs annually to buy medical devices from abroad, Turkey has stepped up its efforts to develop and produce these devices within the country instead.

Expenses for importing medical devices such as respirators or X-ray systems reached more than $8 billion in the last five years, while there has also been a gradual decline.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban welcomed on Saturday, at the 90 Otopeni Air Base, the Romanian doctors and nurses who returned from the mission to Italy, whom he thanked and conveyed his respect and appreciation for the solidarity proven with the medical staff and patients from Italy, in the fight against COVID-19.

Turkey's defense sector is contributing to the production of protective masks and ventilators essential in the fight against COVID-19, said an official on April 24.

Yasin Akdere, general manager of the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, said all kinds of masks, including N95 required by healthcare personnel, are produced in the factories.

Under research and development efforts by the Turkish National Education Ministry, a high school near Turkey's southern border succeeded in producing a medical ventilator critical in treating COVID-19, an official said on April 16. 

There were 5 more fatalities from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours in Greece, all men, raising the total to 98, authorities say.

There are now a total of 2,114 confirmed cases of the disease, 33 of them added since Saturday afternoon.

There are 76 people hooked to ventilators, while 15 patients that had been in intensive care have recovered, authorities said in a statement.

Responding to the worldwide need for more ventilators to assist the fight against COVID-19, a Kosovo-based company has come up with a low-cost, open-source ventilator prototype that uses 3D printing technology.

The European Union will struggle to get hold of large numbers of ventilators quickly to treat patients suffering from Covid-19 due to the complexity of the machines and high demand for them, the executive European Commission said on Friday.

A Turkish firm, supported by some other defense and technology firms, aims to deliver the first batch of domestically produced ventilators mid-April, said the country's industry and technology minister on April 3.

President Donald Trump issued an order on March 27 that seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators for coronavirus patients under the Defense Production Act.

Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, "but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course."

Turkey has launched the mass production of respirators with 1,000 products on the manufacturing line for the Health Ministry to use, along with 5,000 others ordered, Science and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said on March 26.