The coronavirus means that a massive number of people require intensive care and oxygenation in order to live through the infection long enough for their antibodies to fight it.

This means that the only way to save lives at this point is to have as many working reanimation machines as possible.

Massimo Temporelli, founder of The FabLab in Milan, was contacted by a hospital in Brescia - near one of the hardest-hit regions for coronavirus infections - which urgently needed valves for an intensive care device and the supplier could not provide them in a short time.

Running out of the valves would have been dramatic and some people might have lost their lives. So she asked if it would be possible to 3D print them.

After several phone calls to fablabs and companies in Milan and Brescia, fortunately, a company in the area, Isinnova, responded to this call for help through its Founder & CEO Cristian Fracassi, who brought a 3D printer directly to the hospital and, in just a few hours, redesigned and then produced the missing piece.

So far 10 patients are alive thanks to a machine that uses a 3D printed valve which would have been off-line if the valves had not worked.

After the first valves were 3D printed using a filament extrusion system, on location at the hospital, more valves were later 3D printed by another local firm, Lonati SpA, using a polymer laser powder bed fusion process.