The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) will offer a free 1.5-hour webinar, “COVID-19: Protecting Health Care Workers – Decontamination & Reuse of Respirators” on Friday, March 27, 2020, at 12:00pm EDT.
All registrants will be provided with a link to view the webinar recording. The recording will be published on the ACOEM COVID-19 page. For more information and to register, please visit the ACOEM website.
Worldwide, health care workers (HCWs), the front-line defense force against COVID-19, have been infected with and died from this disease. Occupational health care providers in the United States (U.S.) are currently addressing emergency protocols for protecting HCWs from COVID-19. However, there are many unanswered questions related to protecting HCWs especially with the limited supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N95 respirators.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), should release guidance documents this week on decontamination of filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs), elastomeric respirators, powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), and covering a respirator with a surgical mask.
In this webinar, the speakers will review the NIOSH/CDC guidance followed by a discussion of studies on and systems for the decontamination of N95s. The speakers have conducted research on decontamination and use of respirators in health care setting. The presentations will be followed by live, moderated Q&A.