Vets Offer Animal Ventilators to Ease Virus Crisis

(Bloomberg) --

The U.K. government is fielding offers of assistance from vets and veterinary equipment makers as it tries to procure as many ventilators as possible to help with the accelerating coronavirus outbreak

“The Animal Health Trust, along with other veterinary referral centers, is currently in discussion with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine about the possibility of sharing their ventilators to help support the NHS,” the AHT said in a statement. The discussions are still in early stages, they said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urgently trying to acquire ventilators to limit deaths from the coronavirus, and has asked manufacturers across the country to join the effort. Industry representatives have expressed skepticism about his plan, and warned that there won’t be enough of the devices, which help virus patients with pneumonia breathe.

Keith Simpson, managing director of Vetronic Services Ltd., a manufacturer of veterinary ventilators, said he’d been urged to call the government’s business department to offer his company’s products to the National Health Service.

“I’m here, I’m happy to help, but as yet I’m waiting to hear,” he said by phone.

To contact the reporters on this story: Joe Mayes in London at jmayes9@bloomberg.net;Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Joe Mayes

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.