The isolation pod known as the EpiShuttle has finally reached France for evaluation from professional caretakers and medical transport. France is still coping with a large amount of coronavirus patients and high rates of critical cases.

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The EpiShuttle is already in service with The Royal Air Force in Scotland, The Royal Norwegian Air Force, the Royal Danish Air Force and the German Air Ambulance DRF.

Pandemics require highly complicated patient logistics. Safe transport of contagious patients may be essential in handling the epidemic, especially when it comes to critically ill patients. Patients must move safely across hospitals for treatment, between different hospitals for capacity and to hospitals for caretaking, without infecting others.

The EpiShuttle enables safe transport of Covid-19 patients to where capacity is available. Healthcare workers are making an admirable effort transporting patients and at the same time putting their own heath on the line, but if we have to place everyone in quarantine, disinfect all helicopters, aircraft and ambulances after each transport, the whole system may collapse, Ellen Cathrine Andersen, CEO of EpiGuard said.

At EpiGuard, doctors and engineers have worked on solutions for transporting contagious patients for five years and have developed the EpiShuttle. The isolation stretcher ensures the safe transport of contagious patients and the safety of healthcare professionals. At the same time, the isolation stretcher allows critical treatment of the patient along the way.

“EpiGuard is currently experiencing a surge in demand for the EpiShuttle. The EpiShuttle is NATO stock listed and CE-marked as a class one medical device. We have increased production and are ready to deploy in France,” Andersen said.

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Facts about medical transfers of Covid-19 patients:

• Wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE), causes fatigue and should not be performed for more than two hours.
• Long distance evacuation of contagious patients requires several crews to rotate on performing necessary healthcare.
• The airflow inside a helicopter can easily cause virus to flow from the patient to the crew.
• The EpiShuttle allows crew to operate without wearing full personal protective equipment and without the need for a full disinfection of the ambulance or aircraft.

EpiGuard is a Norwegian company established in 2015 providing better solutions for safe transportation of contagious patients. Its team of medical experts and engineers developed the EpiShuttle based on analysis and clinical first-hand experience from previous global epidemics. EpiGuard’s medical background ranges from intensive care, infectious diseases, internal medicine and anesthesiology, and transport medicine.