Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will be helping India’s medical professionals in the ongoing fight against COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The agency will do so by providing them with bio suits, made from the same technology as used in submarine applications.

There is a unique feature to the bio suit made by DRDO. The bio suit uses a special sealant as an alternative to seam sealing tape. This sealant is based on the sealant used in submarine applications, DRDO confirms in a recent press statement.

Interestingly, the use of the glue sealant for the bio suit comes at a time when seam sealing tapes are not widely available in the country. Because of this, the bio suit production in India has also been hampered lately as confirmed by DRDO.



In its press statement, DRDO mentions that the bio suits using glue for seam sealing have already passed the tests and the practice will be making its way to mass production soon. “Presently, bio suits prepared using this glue for seam sealing by an industry partner has cleared the test at Southern India Textile Research Association (SITRA) Coimbatore. This can be a game changer for the textile industry. The DRDO can mass produce this glue through industry to support the seam sealing activity by suit manufacturers,” it added.

DRDO has also made sure that the bio suit is as effective as possible against Coronavirus. Apart from the tests conducted on the suit as mentioned above, the bio suit has been tested to provide protection against synthetic blood, a feature that exceeds the criteria defined for body suits by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

TOI

“The current production capacity is 7,000 suits per day. Another vendor is being brought in with experience in garment technology and efforts are on to ramp up the capacity to 15,000 suits per day,” added DRDO in the statement.



Only recently, Indian Army also announced its help to fight the pandemic in the form of 9,000 hospital beds, ready to treat Covid-19 patients. Read all about it here.

(With inputs from ANI)