WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th April, 2020) Hospitals with vaporized hydrogen peroxide sterilizers received official permission to use such machines to cleanse N95 masks for re-use under an emergency use authorization (EUA) issued by the food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday.
"This EUA is another game changer. It will allow hospitals to decontaminate compatible N95 respirators using vaporized hydrogen peroxide sterilizers that are readily available in approximately 2,000 US hospitals," FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a press release explaining the FDA order. "It's another important step forward in helping to reduce shortages in critical N95 respirators, by allowing for these important devices, when decontaminated, to be reused by health care personnel on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Unlike increasingly ubiquitous surgical masks, which offer little protection against the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, the N95 version forms an airtight seal over the nose and mouth and contains a filter to remove microbes from air breathed by the users.
A nationwide shortage of N95 has prompted hospitals to experiment with other sterilization measures, such as ultraviolet light without FDA approval, according to media reports.
Hydrogen peroxide sterilization is a low temperature process in which vapor fills a sterilization chamber, penetrates the device and sterilizes exposed surfaces, the FDA release said.
The release recommended a specific brand, the STERIS V-PRO, which features a decontamination cycle capable of cleansing ten respirators at one time in a 28-minute process, allowing a single person to reuse the mask up to ten times.
