New technique to evaluate decontamination methods for filtering facepiece respirators

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Infect Control
• Personal Author:
  Vo, Evanly ; Rengasamy, Samy ; Xu, Susan ; Horvatin, Matthew ; Zhuang, Ziqing
• 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.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Article Decontamination Disinfection Equipment Reuse Humans Infection Control Moist Heat MS2 Virus N95 Respirator Pandemics Respiratory Protective Devices Ultraviolet Rays UVGI Ventilators, Mechanical

  More +
• Source:
  Am J Infect Control. 49(4):416-423
• Pubmed ID:
  33524450
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9494706
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  49
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:87f5aaca043f05b0866770ef0cd6e2a0a6d265871273bae5e194cfdcf6361caf
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/121543/cdc_121543_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.54 MB ]