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New technique to evaluate decontamination methods for filtering facepiece respirators
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4 2021
Source: Am J Infect Control. 49(4):416-423 -
Alternative Title:Am J Infect Control
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Publisher's site:
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Personal Author:
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Description:Background:
A major concern among health care experts is a shortage of N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) during a pandemic. One option for mitigating an FFR shortage is to decontaminate and reuse the devices. The focus of this study was to develop a new evaluation technique based on 3 major decontamination requirements: (1) inactivating viruses, (2) not altering the respirator properties, and (3) not leaving any toxic by product on the FFR.
Methods:
Hydrophilic and hydrophobic FFRs were contaminated with MS2 virus. In the solution-based deposition, the virus-containing liquid droplets were spiked directly onto FFRs, while in the vapor-based and aerosol-based depositions, the viral particles were loaded onto FFRs using a bio-aerosol testing system Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) and moist heat (MH) decontamination methods were used for inactivation of viruses applied to FFRs.
Resutis:
Both UVGI and MH methods inactivated viruses (>5-log reduction of MS2 virus; in 92% of both method experiments, the virus was reduced to levels below the detection limit), did not alter the respirator properties, and did not leave any toxic byproduct on the FFRs.
Conclusions:
Both UVGI and MH methods could be considered as promising decontamination candidates for inactivation of viruses for respirator reuse during shortages.
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Subject:
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Pubmed ID:33524450
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Pubmed Central ID:PMC9494706
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[PDF-1.54 MB]
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