New Delhi, Apr 14 (IANS): Indian Navy distributed Air Evacuation Pod, indigenously designed, on Tuesday for transferring COVID patients from remote areas, the force said.

The Navy's naval aircraft yard at Kochi designed and fabricated an Air Evacuation Stretcher for transfer of Covid patients from remote locations. The manufacturing cost of the pod is Rs 50,000 against imported piece cost of Rs 59 lakhs.

The Navy has transferred 12 units to other commands.

The Pod uses aluminum, nitrile rubber and perspex with total weight of 32 kg. It eliminates infection risk to crew and the need of sanitization of aircraft post evacuation.

Trials were held on board of Advance Light Helicopter and Dornier aircraft of Indian Navy in Kochi. After the trial was successful, the force distributed 12 of these Pods to various command centres.

The force also carried out a feasibility study for in-house modification to isolate the cockpit and cabin area. Simulated airlifting of patient was also conducted.

In addition to it, Indian Navy on April 12 handed an in-house designed and manufactured 'Portable Multi-feed Oxygen Manifold' to civil administration of Visakhapatnam.

It was designed and developed by Naval Dockyard at Visakhapatnam.

"The entire setup uses an industrial 6-way radial header to enable one jumbo size oxygen bottle to supply oxygen to six patients concurrently," the force said.

While five sets were handed over to the local administration, the rest 20 sets are planned to be progressively supplied within the next two weeks.