Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
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J Occup Environ Hyg · Mar 2019
Pilot study on the efficiency of water-only decontamination for firefighters' turnout gear.
Firefighters are exposed to toxic environments upon entering burning structures. Many structures contain synthetic materials which release toxic chemicals when on fire. These chemicals can enter the body through multiple routes of exposure, including inhalation and skin absorption. ⋯ All firefighters came to a central location for sampling after completing their job responsibilities. Water only decontamination did not appear to be effective, resulting in an overall 42% increase in PAH contamination. The unexpected increase may have been due to disparate pre- and post-decontamination sampling sites on turnout gear.
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Healthcare providers and law enforcement utilize spit socks to prevent exposure to communicable diseases transmitted by bodily fluid projection from agitated individuals. There are cases in which death is reported due to breathing being limited by a spit sock. There are no formally published studies on their use and safety. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether wearing a spit sock causes a clinically significant impact on breathing. ⋯ In healthy subjects there were no clinically significant changes in the physiologic parameters of breathing while wearing a spit sock.
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Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol · Feb 2019
Human factors-based risk analysis to improve the safety of doffing enhanced personal protective equipment.
To systematically assess enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE) doffing safety risks. ⋯ Despite detailed guidelines, our study revealed 103 enhanced PPE doffing failure modes. Analysis of the failure modes suggests potential mitigation strategies to decrease self-contamination risk during enhanced PPE doffing.
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Epidemiol Mikrobiol Imunol · Jan 2019
Decontamination of CBRN units contaminated by highly contagious biological agents.
A decontamination process plays a key role in management of biological incidents. While decontamination of surfaces and buildings located in the hot zone can be usually postponed until an agent is confirmed and an adequate planning phase is established, personnel wearing personal protective equipment must be decontaminated prior to their final exit from the hot zone. ⋯ Experimental tests with surrogates of biological agents are thus necessary to identify above-mentioned points. Once an optimal decontamination procedure is recognized, a field rehearsal must follow and the method using a surrogate must be implemented into a training process of CBRN units.
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Am J Infect Control · Dec 2018
Risk of self-contamination during doffing of personal protective equipment.
PPE doffing carries significant risk for self-contamination. Assisted doffing likely reduces this risk.
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