Originally created by a robot scientist and a neurosurgeon to help India’s poor, a toaster-sized ventilator is offering hope in the country’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic and demand is booming.

The virus at its most lethal attacks the lungs, making ventilators — which pump breathable air into a patient — critical for hospitals around the world as they are swamped with COVID-19 cases.

With the toll rising in India, where a nationwide lockdown is in force, production of AgVa’s portable ventilator has shot up from 500 a month to 20,000.

“There was no way we could have foreseen something as big as this,” said neurosurgeon Deepak Agrawal, who co-developed the device with robot scientist Diwakar Vaish.

Priced at around $2,000, the AgVa ventilator is a fraction of the price of conventional ventilators, which go for more than $10,000.