Source avec lien : Annals of Work Exposures and Health, 66(2). 10.1093/annweh/wxab079
Les masques médicaux ont une efficacité de filtration et un ajustement inférieurs à ceux des masques faciaux filtrants (FFR) mais sont largement utilisés dans les soins de santé et dans la communauté. Ces masques sont destinés à être jetés après usage, mais en cas de pénurie de masques, leur réutilisation après retraitement peut être une option. Nous avons étudié huit méthodes de retraitement qui impliquent chacune un lavage ou un trempage dans un liquide, qui sont susceptibles d’éliminer les virus respiratoires, et qui sont sûres et disponibles dans la plupart des établissements de santé et des collectivités.
Medical masks have inferior filtration efficiency and fit to filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) but are widely used in healthcare and the community. These masks are intended for disposal after use but in the event of mask shortage re-use after reprocessing may be an option. We investigated eight reprocessing methods that each involved washing or soaking in liquid, are likely to eliminate respiratory viruses, and are safe and available in most community and healthcare settings.Three brands of EN 14683 standards-compliant commercial medical mask were each reprocessed 10 times by one of eight methods. We measured filtration efficiency for poly-dispersed sodium chloride particles and pressure differential.Compared with new medical masks, reprocessed masks had significantly reduced filtration efficiency. The reduction was mild-moderate (6.5–25.8%) after warm water wash, hot water soak or boiling water soak; and moderate-large (24.1–51.5%) after detergent, soap or laundry machine wash, or bleach soak. There were mixed and minor changes in pressure differential. Most reprocessed standards-compliant masks had better filtration efficiency than new non-standard commercial masks and then cotton and cotton-polyester mix fabric samples, even triple-layered fabrics.High-quality commercial medical masks reprocessed 10 times by water immersion methods had better filtration efficiency than new non-standard masks and washable fabrics. These findings have particular relevance for community and low-resource healthcare settings.