Biological Aerosol Test Method and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Decon

摘要

Capability to simulate surface deposition of contagious droplets from human respiratory secretions, developed for use in a BSL3 laboratory at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), was used to quantitatively assess the effects of three decontamination methods microwave/steam, moist heat, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation on viable infectious influenza virus A/H5N1. This report describes this capability, including laboratory techniques and methods used to test and analyze samples. UNMC will use this capability for aerosol-related research at to evaluate effectiveness of personal respirator protection devices. This effort evaluated technologies for disinfecting filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) by aerosolizing, sampling, and analyzing viability of A/H5N1 virus on FFRs. Objectives included supporting and enhancing collection of quality data, characterizing and optimizing the aerosol test systems and supplementary data quantification using real-time polymerase chain reaction assays. AFRL supplied two aerosol surface deposition test systems used to apply virus to the FFRs: These test systems were the Laboratory-Scale Aerosol Test System and Droplet Loading Device. Performance of both was validated in UNMC's BSL3 laboratory, first with colored dyes (to ensure equal distribution of aerosol across the system), then with viable virus, which verified system operations within design parameters. AFRL's protocols were utilized throughout unless otherwise specified. FFRs were loaded with virus, subjected to one of the decontamination methods, then assayed for viable virus. All three treatments reduced viable virus concentrations by 4 log10 TCID50.