Bhubaneswar, July 24: At least six extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines will reach Odisha by July end, informed Director of Medical Education & Training (DMET) Dr CBK Mohanty on Saturday.

Mohanty said that Odisha has already acquired two sets of machines and the training for the same is in progress.

Odisha State Medical Corporation has already placed a purchase order to procure six more ECMO machines. The machines will be installed at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.

The ECMO machines are used for critically ill Covid patients, whose lungs are damaged and require ventilator support. ECMO is a method in which blood is drawn out of the body into a machine, oxygen is mixed with blood using a special by-pass pump-circuit, and the blood is pumped back into the body. It works as an artificial heart-lung machine.

The spike in the number of critical Covid-19 patients has shot up the demand for ECMO procedure. After a lung infection due to Covid-19, fibrosis (tissue) builds up in the lungs. However, through this procedure, the lungs can be kept artificially active for up to one month.