Newly approved machine can decontaminate 80,000 respirator masks a day

A machine that can decontaminate up to 80,000 respirators a day has been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration, according to an article on the Infection Control Today website.

The decontamination system uses vapor phase hydrogen peroxide to decontaminate the masks. 

The machine “can decontaminate the same respirator mask up to 20 times without degrading the mask’s performance,” according to the manufacturer.

 “As an infection preventionists our days are spent frantically searching for PPE, advising fellow clinicians on how to reuse masks, gowns, goggles, and all the other PPE that they currently have, or actually how to create their own. And truly this goes against everything we have known from the scientific evidence, and what we have always taught our staff. We’re trying to protect our coworkers as best we can. But we need help now,” Ann Marie Pettis, RN, BSN, CIC, FAPIC, APIC’s president-elect, said in the article.

Read the article.