BENGALURU: Healthcare workers are risking their lives to fight COVID-19, but they are struggling to source sufficient numbers of personal protective equipment, especially masks. The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Tuesday stated that doctors, both faculty and residents, technical staff, and maintenance staff, will be provided with N95 masks through representative heads of departments. Nursing officers and security guards – posted in patient care areas – will be provided with masks through nursing officials.
But each healthcare worker will be given only five masks, stated a circular, issued by AIIMS Medical Superintendent Dr D K Sharma with the approval of AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria. It stated that health workers have to reuse the masks after disinfecting them, but has given no guidelines as to how to do it. “It is imperative that in accordance with the evidence based on scientific literature, these N95 masks are to be disinfected by individual users by keeping them in the open after use or by other methods, and be reused at least four times each, where these will suffice for about 20 days,” the circular said. Health workers are not sure of the process of sterilising the masks.
According to CDC guidelines, the number of times a mask can be safely re-used depends on multiple factors, including whether the user was exposed, how it was stored and whether it was soiled. Assuming that there is no soiling and nil viral contamination to the outside of the mask, the CDC suggests that the masks can be hung to dry or stored in a breathable container in between uses. The following strategy has been suggested by multiple organisations, based on the fact that the coronavirus loses its viability significantly after 72 hours.
However, Dr Chandrashekar N, a senior doctor from a government hospital, said, “When planning to reuse an N95 mask, removal of the mask should be done strictly avoiding contamination of its inside.” Meanwhile, doctors in the state are also worried that they have only been told that PPEs will come soon, bu t nothing is being done in that regard.