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DRDO cochlear implant to cost only Rs1 lakh
The Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) has developed an affordable cochlear implant, which will cost around Rs1 lakh.
This is much cheaper than similar imported device which costs about Rs 8 lakhs. India is now the fifth country besides US, Austria, Australia and France in the world to produce such a complex device.
The Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), based at Visakhapatnam, a unit of DRDO has developed cochlear implant which is also known as bionic ear. It is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing due to loss of sensory hair cells in their cochlea.
In India, there are nearly one million people who need cochlear implants and every year nearly 10,000 children are born with this impairment. The indigenously developed device will bring great relief as it is much cheaper as compared to the imported device and the DRDO device will go for clinical trials within next four months, Dr V Bhujanga Rao, Chief Controller(Research and Development) DRDO said here on Sunday.
Announcing this during a workshop on "Transcanal Technique for Cochlear Implant," he said the indigenous device was undergoing final laboratory evaluation and after trials at five centres in the country, the indigenous cochlear implant will go into production.
Pre-lingually deaf children, post-lingually impaired children and post-lingually deaf adults who have lost hearing due to diseases such as meningitis form three distinct groups of potential users of cochlear implants with different needs and outcomes.
Inaugurating the workshop former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam said cochlear implant is a highly complex system requiring extensive research and owing to this implant could only be developed by three or four countries in the world namely the US, Austria, Australia and France.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) has developed an affordable cochlear implant, which will cost around Rs1 lakh.
This is much cheaper than similar imported device which costs about Rs 8 lakhs. India is now the fifth country besides US, Austria, Australia and France in the world to produce such a complex device.
The Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), based at Visakhapatnam, a unit of DRDO has developed cochlear implant which is also known as bionic ear. It is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing due to loss of sensory hair cells in their cochlea.
In India, there are nearly one million people who need cochlear implants and every year nearly 10,000 children are born with this impairment. The indigenously developed device will bring great relief as it is much cheaper as compared to the imported device and the DRDO device will go for clinical trials within next four months, Dr V Bhujanga Rao, Chief Controller(Research and Development) DRDO said here on Sunday.
Announcing this during a workshop on "Transcanal Technique for Cochlear Implant," he said the indigenous device was undergoing final laboratory evaluation and after trials at five centres in the country, the indigenous cochlear implant will go into production.
Pre-lingually deaf children, post-lingually impaired children and post-lingually deaf adults who have lost hearing due to diseases such as meningitis form three distinct groups of potential users of cochlear implants with different needs and outcomes.
Inaugurating the workshop former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam said cochlear implant is a highly complex system requiring extensive research and owing to this implant could only be developed by three or four countries in the world namely the US, Austria, Australia and France.
