Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
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Multicenter Study
Characterization of initial North American pediatric surgical response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric surgical care systems is unknown. We present an initial evaluation of self-reported pediatric surgical policy changes from hospitals across North America. ⋯ III.
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During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals are at the forefront of managing the highly infectious coronavirus. As the most common route of transmission is via aerosols and droplet inhalation, it is critical for healthcare workers to have the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) including gowns, masks and goggles. Surgical masks are not effective in preventing the influenza and SARS, so they are unlikely to be able to resist contaminated aerosols from entering the respiratory system. ⋯ Various types of respirators are used in healthcare settings, such as half-mask filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) and powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs). The most commonly used FFR is the N95 disposable respirator, which is tight fitting and has a 95% or above particle filtering efficiency for a median particle size of 0.3 µm. This review discusses respirators, their purpose, types, clinical efficiency and proper donning and doffing techniques.
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With the rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the amount of used personal protective equipment (PPE) including face masks and protective clothes has significantly increased. This used PPE in a hospital can lead to the indirect infection by COVID-19. ⋯ Through the experience of spreading some infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome and Ebola virus in South Korea (Republic of Korea), a safe management method of waste related to infectious diseases has been developed. In addition, regarding waste related to COVID-19, the Ministry of Environment, SK, proposed special measures to strengthen the management process of waste related to COVID-19 based on principles such as sustainability, transparency and safety.