Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
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Int. J. Clin. Pract. · Oct 2020
ReviewThe covid-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment, and respirator: a narrative review.
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has touched almost every continent. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is the final line of protection of healthcare workers (HCW). There is variation as well as controversy of infection control recommendation with regards to the use of PPE for HCW between institutions. The aim of this narrative review is to of examine and summarise the available evidence to guide recommendation for the safety of HCW. ⋯ Transmission of viruses is multimodal and in the setting of a novel pathogen with high case fatality with no proven effective interventions, PPE that affords the best protection should be available to HCWs.
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The high demand for personal protective equipment during the novel coronavirus outbreak has prompted the need to develop strategies to conserve supply. Little is known regarding decontamination interventions to allow for surgical mask reuse. ⋯ There is limited evidence on the safety or efficacy of surgical mask decontamination. Given the heterogeneous methods used in studies to date, we are unable to draw conclusions on the most efficacious and safe intervention for decontaminating surgical masks.