The Importance of Personal Protective Equipment Design and Donning and Doffing Technique in Mitigating Infectious Disease Spread: A Technical Report

McCarthy, Robert; Gino, Bruno; d'Entremont, Philip; Barari, Ahmad; Renouf, Tia

doi:10.7759/cureus.12084

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Vaccination will not eliminate risks (19). The current findings thus stress the need for increased focus on use of recommended PPE, correct donning, doffing and other procedures (20-22), training (23) and ventilation (24). The aim is to secure healthcare workers’ health and reduce transmission into the community (25) during ongoing and future waves of SARS-CoV-2 and other infections.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Healthcare workers’ SARS-CoV-2 infection rates during the second wave of the pandemic: prospective follow-up study

Würtz

Kinnerup

Pugdahl

et al. 2021

Preprint

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ObjectivesTo assess if healthcare workers during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic had increased SARS-CoV-2 infection rates following close contact with patients, co-workers and persons outside work with COVID-19.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingPublic hospital employees in Denmark.Participants5985 healthcare workers (88.6% women) who daily on a smartphone reported COVID-19 contact.Main outcome measuresSARS-CoV-2 infection rates defined by the first positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test recorded in a register with complete test coverage.Results159 positive and 35 996 negative PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 were recorded during 514 165 person-days of follow-up November 25, 2020 - April 30, 2021. The SARS-CoV-2 infection rate for healthcare workers who during the previous 3-7 days had close contact with COVID-19 patients was 153.7 per 100 000 person-days (0.15% per day) corresponding with an incidence rate ratio of 3.17 (40 cases, 95% CI 2.15 to 4.66) when compared with no close contact with COVID-19 patients. SARS-CoV-2 incidence rate ratios following close contact with co-workers and persons outside work with COVID-19 were 2.54 (10 cases, 95% CI 1.30 to 4.96) and 17.79 (35 cases, 95% CI 12.05 to 26.28). These estimates were mutually adjusted and further adjusted for age, sex, month and number of previous PCR tests.ConclusionsDespite strong focus on preventive actions during the second wave of the pandemic, healthcare workers were still at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection when in close contact with patients with COVID-19. The numbers affected were comparable to the numbers affected following COVID-19 contact outside work.Close contact with co-workers was also a risk factor. This stresses the need for increased focus on preventive actions to secure healthcare workers’ health during ongoing and future waves of SARS-CoV-2 and other infections.Summary boxWhat is already known on this topic?During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive measures were inadequate and healthcare workers were at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.What this study adds?During the second wave of the pandemic, despite a strong focus on preventive actions, healthcare workers were still at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection following close contact with COVID-19 patients.The numbers affected were comparable to the numbers affected following COVID-19 contact outside work.Healthcare works were also at increased risk following close contact with co-workers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Healthcare workers’ SARS-CoV-2 infection rates during the second wave of the pandemic: prospective follow-up study

Würtz

Kinnerup

Pugdahl

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Good training for regular work but also preparation for unpredictable situations are key for PPE users, especially for the doffing process. This has been well known for the past 2 decades from Ebola outbreaks (CDC, 2015;McLaws et al, 2016;Casanova et al, 2018;Mumma et al, 2018Mumma et al, , 2019Wong et al, 2019) and was confirmed during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (McCarthy et al, 2020;Wong et al, 2020;Yuan et al, 2020a,b). However, in spite of this long standing knowledge few HCWs had been trained on detailed PPE competencies.…”

Section: Role Of Training For Personal Protective Equipment Competenciesmentioning

confidence: 76%

Resilience and Protection of Health Care and Research Laboratory Workers During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Analysis and Case Study From an Austrian High Security Laboratory

et al. 2022

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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the interdependency of healthcare systems and research organizations on manufacturers and suppliers of personnel protective equipment (PPE) and the need for well-trained personnel who can react quickly to changing working conditions. Reports on challenges faced by research laboratory workers (RLWs) are rare in contrast to the lived experience of hospital health care workers. We report on experiences gained by RLWs (e.g., molecular scientists, pathologists, autopsy assistants) who significantly contributed to combating the pandemic under particularly challenging conditions due to increased workload, sickness and interrupted PPE supply chains. RLWs perform a broad spectrum of work with SARS-CoV-2 such as autopsies, establishment of virus cultures and infection models, development and verification of diagnostics, performance of virus inactivation assays to investigate various antiviral agents including vaccines and evaluation of decontamination technologies in high containment biological laboratories (HCBL). Performance of autopsies and laboratory work increased substantially during the pandemic and thus led to highly demanding working conditions with working shifts of more than eight hours working in PPE that stressed individual limits and also the ergonomic and safety limits of PPE. We provide detailed insights into the challenges of the stressful daily laboratory routine since the pandemic began, lessons learned, and suggest solutions for better safety based on a case study of a newly established HCBL (i.e., BSL-3 laboratory) designed for autopsies and research laboratory work. Reduced personal risk, increased resilience, and stress resistance can be achieved by improved PPE components, better training, redundant safety measures, inculcating a culture of safety, and excellent teamwork

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“…Wearing proper PPE can help medical staff reduce the risk of infection, but incorrectly donning and doffing PPE can expose medical staff to hazardous conditions that make them highly susceptible to infection. Multiple publications during the outbreak reported proper PPE donning and doffing (61)(62)(63)(64), with hand hygiene implementation throughout the process of proper PPE donning and doffing. Since gloves are the most heavily contaminated protective equipment, both the Glove-in-Glove Technique and Bird Beak Technique methods of glove removal can be used (65) to reduce the chance of hand contamination.…”

Section: Proper Donning and Doffing Of Protective Equipment Are More Importantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing Safe Dental Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recommendations Based on a Guide Developed for Dental Practices in China

Zeng

Chen

et al. 2021

Front. Med.

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The current global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is still exerting severe global implications, and its development in various regions is complex and variable. The high risk of cross-infection poses a great challenge to the dental practice environment; it is therefore urgent to develop a set of pandemic prevention measures to ensure dental practice safety during the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, we combined the epidemiological characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), public emergency measures for COVID-19, characteristics of dental practice, and relevant literature reports to develop a set of dynamic practice measures for dental practices in high-, medium-, and low-risk areas affected by COVID-19. This will help dental practices to achieve standard prevention and ensure their safe and smooth operation during the pandemic. It is hoped that these measures will provide a reference basis for dental hospitals and dental clinics in their care and pandemic prevention work.

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The Importance of Personal Protective Equipment Design and Donning and Doffing Technique in Mitigating Infectious Disease Spread: A Technical Report

Cited by 24 publications

References 12 publications

Healthcare workers’ SARS-CoV-2 infection rates during the second wave of the pandemic: prospective follow-up study

Healthcare workers’ SARS-CoV-2 infection rates during the second wave of the pandemic: prospective follow-up study

Resilience and Protection of Health Care and Research Laboratory Workers During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Analysis and Case Study From an Austrian High Security Laboratory

Optimizing Safe Dental Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recommendations Based on a Guide Developed for Dental Practices in China

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