Open AccessUV decontamination of personal protective equipment with idle laboratory biosafety cabinets during the COVID-19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Davis T. Weaver,
Benjamin D. McElvany,
Vishhvaan Gopalakrishnan,
Kyle J. Card,
Dena Crozier,
Andrew Dhawan,
Mina Dinh,
Emily Dolson,
Nathan Farrokhian,
Masahiro Hitomi,
Emily Ho,
Tanush Jagdish,
Eshan S. King,
Jennifer L. Cadnum,
Curtis J. Donskey,
Nikhil Krishnan,
Gleb Kuzmin,
Ju Li,
Jeff Maltas,
Jinhan Mo,
Julia Pelesko,
Jessica Scarborough,
Geoffrey Sedor,
Enze Tian,
Gary An,
Sean A. Diehl,
Jacob G. Scott
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0241734
Subject(s) - personal protective equipment , biosafety , respirator , human decontamination , pandemic , covid-19 , face shield , health care , medical emergency , medicine , environmental health , business , toxicology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease , chemistry , biology , pathology , organic chemistry , economics , economic growth
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 μW cm −2 ). Our results provide support to healthcare organizations looking for methods to extend their reserves of PPE.