Abstract
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is crucially important to the safety of both patients and medical personnel, particularly in the event of an infectious pandemic. As the incidence of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) increases exponentially in the United States and many parts of the world, healthcare provider demand for these necessities is currently outpacing supply. In the midst of the current pandemic, there has been a concerted effort to identify viable ways to conserve PPE, including decontamination after use. In this study, we outline a procedure by which PPE may be decontaminated using ultraviolet (UV) radiation in biosafety cabinets (BSCs), a common element of many academic, public health, and hospital laboratories. According to the literature, effective decontamination of N95 respirator masks or surgical masks requires UV-C doses of greater than 1 Jcm-2, which was achieved after 4.3 hours per side when placing the N95 at the bottom of the BSCs tested in this study. We then demonstrated complete inactivation of the human coronavirus NL63 on N95 mask material after 15 minutes of UV-C exposure at 61 cm (232 μWcm-2). Our results provide support to healthcare organizations looking for methods to extend their reserves of PPE.
Highlights
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is essential for protecting medical personnel and patients during outbreaks of airborne or droplet borne infectious diseases
Due to the rapidly emergent nature of the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and stringent requirements of proper PPE protocol, many hospitals are running dangerously low on these protective devices
While this paper focuses on biosafety cabinets (BSCs), many other promising approaches to ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) decontamination are being designed by other groups [7, 17]
Summary
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is essential for protecting medical personnel and patients during outbreaks of airborne or droplet borne infectious diseases. Due to the rapidly emergent nature of the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and stringent requirements of proper PPE protocol, many hospitals are running dangerously low on these protective devices. As a result, both patients and their healthcare providers are at increased risk of contracting and spreading SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Multiple studies have addressed this question and overall found no significant deleterious effect of UV irradiation on the integrity and filtration capacity of several medical-grade masks [4, 5, 12, 13] Assuming fit tests are performed regularly, the possibility of damage to the filter is the greater concern because it cannot be detected as
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