Russia halts use of ventilators, also shipped to US, that sparked two hospital fires

Russia announced Wednesday it is halting the use of some medical ventilators used to fight the coronavirus after the machines sparked two fatal hospital fires.

State health care regulator Roszdravnadzor announced in a statement that it is suspending using Aventa-M ventilators that were made after April 1 after fires at hospitals in St. Petersburg and Moscow killed a total of six people.

Roszdravnadzor confirmed in its statement that its ventilators were used in the hospital where the fires occurred.

The Aventa-M ventilators have already been sent across Russia, whose coronavirus death toll trails that of several other nations but now has the second-highest number of confirmed cases behind the U.S.

It was not immediately clear precisely how many ventilators would be impacted by the order.

Russia also sent a number of Aventa-M ventilators to the U.S., but officials have said the machines were not ultimately used.

Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern, which controls the company that manufactures the ventilators, said Tuesday that the machines passed all the necessary tests and have been used in Russia without safety issues since 2012, according to Reuters.