US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

[FrenchieGirl]

Ebola outbreak: US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

The US will award $1 million in funding to whoever can design the best hazmat suit, as the Ebola crisis has driven demand for the protective gear to record highs.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is calling on the internet to design an anti-contamination suit that will better protect aid workers from catching Ebola.

 

[G.Verkerk]

Re: US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

I'd really like to know if a first layer of protection on risk areas could be this:

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/37/51/37/70/0037513770401_500X500.jpg

(author declares no conflict of interest )

 

[etudiant]

Re: US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

Is not the problem the absence of an effective decontamination process?
If there were a safe way to sterilize the outside of the suit while it is worn, it would be much safer for the HCWs to don and doff this gear. Even just having the gloves cleansed before taking off the suit would be a big help.

In the early days of microbial research, they used to dip their hands into a colloidal silver suspension, probably a silver nitrate solution. Could something as simple as a 5% hydrogen peroxide solution be a modern day equivalent, either to sterilize the gloves or maybe even to clean off the entire suit. A hydrogen peroxide shower could be improvised pretty easily to test the effectiveness of this approach.

 

[franzpick]

Re: US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

'Dipping' or spraying the gloves in a downward-facing direction leaves contamination at the top edge of the glove. Doesn't sterilizing the gloves, in whatever manner, require that they be facing upward, and the de-contaminant run down over the now lower edge of the glove, onto the underlying body cover?

And if so, how is any downward splash or aerosol spray kept away from facial or other body contact?

I cannot envision any 100% safe method of PPE removal, except perhaps after an extended period of UV-A-B-and-C pulsed exposure by the new $100K XENEX UV decontaminator device now being sold to hospitals.

Tell me what I am missing...

 

[BoomerCoop]

Re: US government offers $1m for best hazmat suit design

I'd really like to know if a first layer of protection on risk areas could be this:

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/37/51/37/70/0037513770401_500X500.jpg

(author declares no conflict of interest )

You know, that's what I was thinking. Some kind of spray on rubber suit that would cover whole body (except for mouth and eyes and ears).