Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service, coming up, pioneering firms, trying to overcome the critical shortages in the fight against COVID-19.

All that we're doing is taking our high-proof alcohol that we make, and ingredients like glycerin just for a thickening agent, and really that's all there is to it.

We went from yesterday morning having our's all there is to it. We went from

yesterday morning having our initial meeting on this to yesterday afternoon. We had product in a

bottle. Hand gels, face masks, even hospital ventilators, but are such homemade solutions enough

to meet the need? We're a global society and we'd like to view ourselves as individual nations,

but we are dependent upon each other now.

So releasing that information about how we do things is incredibly valuable.

That's all to come in Business Daily from the BBC.

I see a lot of it. A nurse there in an intensive care in Hubei province in China, she's calling on a patient to take more oxygen.

Those most affected with COVID-19 often suffer acute respiratory failure.

And at this point, ventilators like this one can be the difference between life and death.

Doctors like Carla Maestrini in Cremona in the epicenter of the outbreak in Northern Italy.

She depends on these machines crucially.

But the lack of available equipment is

becoming a big obstacle.

There have been many deaths, and this is destroying us, because we think we aren't able to do

what we're here for, treating people and making them feel better. The reality is we see them

dying, and we all die inside too.

An Italian doctor speaking to Channel 4 News. Well, the lack of ventilators globally has become

a major talking point. Governments everywhere are ordering more in expectation that they

won't have enough if and when infections spike. US hospitals, for example, are said to have

...