Abstract
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition, there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide, due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing. Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency, safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring environmental problems.
Highlights
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19
We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing
We describe the mechanisms of viral infection, followed by a summary of the types of PPE used within a healthcare environment
Summary
The virion is usually composed of DNA or RNA genomic material that contains the genetic instructions for reproducing the virus and a protein coating called a capsid, which surrounds and protects DNA or RNA (Figure 1a).[10] Some viruses have an outer lipidbased envelope and are known as enveloped viruses (H1N1, coronaviruses, etc.).[11] The coronavirus which causes COVID19 has such a fatty envelope, which can be destroyed by the application of soap-like materials. Other viruses without such an envelope are called naked viruses (e.g., Rotavirus). The coronavirus which causes COVID-19 has been found to be transmitted via aerosols.[19]
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