A ventilator is a mechanical machine or a medical device that supports breathing. Its basic function is to manage the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide that is, getting the oxygen into the patient’s lungs and helping the release of carbon dioxide from the lungs. The device can be disconnected or removed after the patient has recovered from the illness and can breathe independently without the support of any external machine. 

Anesthesia ventilators are integral parts of all modern anesthesia workstations. These are highly sophisticated machines that are equipped with various advanced ventilation modes. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is massively boosting the sales of ventilators across the globe. For example, Medtronic plc announced on March 19th, 2020 that it would double its ventilator manufacturing and supplying capacity in order to help medical practitioners combat the pandemic and reduce the fatality rates all over the world.

The company basically doubled the number of ventilator manufacturing shifts at its manufacturing plant in Galway, Ireland. This will subsequently push up the sales of ventilators across the world, which will, in turn, fuel the expansion of the global anesthesia ventilator market. In terms of mobility, these ventilators are divided into neonatal, intensive care, and portable ventilators. Out of these, the usage of the intensive care ventilators was found to be the highest in the years gone by.

This was because of the high volume of ventilators used in the intensive care units (ICUs) of hospitals. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly boosted the demand for these ventilators in several countries across the world. There are mainly two types of anesthesia ventilators used throughout the world namely non-invasive and invasive devices. Between these, the sales of the invasive devices are predicted to be higher in the forthcoming years.

The biggest end-users of these ventilators are hospitals, pre-hospital settings and emergency medical services (EMS), and ambulatory care centers. Out of these, the usage of these ventilators will be the highest in the hospitals in the future years, as per the estimates of P&S Intelligence, a market research firm based in India. This would be mainly because of the presence of better medical facilities and technologically advanced devices in hospitals.

Geographically, the anesthesia ventilator market recorded the highest growth in North America in the past years. This was because of the rapid technological advancements, high healthcare expenditure, the high incidence of chronic respiratory diseases, and the presence of a large geriatric population in the region. In the near future, the sales of these devices would rise rapidly in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, primarily because of the soaring number of COVID-19-infected patients and surging geriatric population in the region.

Hence, it can be safely concluded that the demand for anesthesia ventilators would surge all over the world in the years to come, mainly because of the rising prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases, rapid spread of the COVID-19 infection, soaring geriatric population, and the growing adoption of technologically advanced devices in hospitals and other healthcare facilities around the world.