Benchmark VNI Ventilator COVIDAIR

The COVID-19 pandemic is a critical care crisis. Never before have so many people become critically ill at the same time. As COVID-19 lacks a definitive treatment, critical care is the primary therapeutic means for reducing mortality. How the world effectively scales-up critical care will be a fundamental determinant of the overall impact of the pandemic. Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed in the pandemic, and care is provided at a lower resource level than usual. Advanced critical care may be difficult or impossible to scale-up in many settings and instead, essential, life-saving, treatments should be provided to all who need. Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC) is the basic, low-cost care required by critically ill patients, such as oxygen and iv-fluids, and the system-wide requirements for their provision. We propose to study EECC in the COVID-19 pandemic, to assess the cost-effectiveness of EECC and advanced critical care in two countries in Africa, and analyse the impact of the global and national response strategies to COVID-19 on critical care services. Our aim is to guide global and national COVID-19 responses in LMICs towards scalable strategies with the greatest potential for increased survival of critically ill patients, both in the pandemic and beyond.