Performance of materials used for biological personal protective equipment against blood splash penetration

SHIMASAKI, Noriko; SHINOHARA, Katsuaki; MORIKAWA, Hideki

The protection performance of each sample material against SB splashes was not correlated with that of each material against SB impact pressure ( Table 2 and Fig. 1 ). This implies that protection performance is dependent on multiple factors -i.e., mainly material structure, but also load condition (splash impact and continuous pressure). Therefore, it is necessary to test materials under various conditions to determine their protective capacity. It is important for HCWs to select suitable PPC and masks certified by testing. Identifying differences in protection performance by various test methods can facilitate PPE selection based on risk assessment so that accidental exposure to infectious agents can be avoided. However, there are few methods currently available for testing the performance of protective materials against hazardous biological agents (Table 3) . These tests typically measure the Clothing for protection against contact with blood and body fluids -Determination of the resistance of protective clothing materials to penetration by blood and body fluids -Test method using synthetic blood Clothing for protection agains tinfectious agents -Medicalfacemasks-Test method for resistance against penetration by syntheticblood (fixedvolume, horizontallyprojected)