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

SHIMASAKI, Noriko; SHINOHARA, Katsuaki; MORIKAWA, Hideki

In this study, we evaluated the protection performance of woven and non-woven materials used in commercially available PPC or masks at hospitals to protect against leakage of splashed blood, using a modified version of the ISO 22609 test. The results are summarized in Table 2 . We found that the volume of leaked liquid was dependent on the structural characteristics of each material; samples 3, 4, 5, 10, and 11 had low leakage volumes. Detection sensitivity was improved by using absorption paper rather than by relying on simple visual inspection. In this study, an SB volume as low as 0.05 μl that penetrated sample 5 was detected using absorption paper (Fig. 3) . Our previous study demonstrated a positive correlation between leaked SB volume and number of penetrated microbes 15) . Therefore, quantifying the volume of leaked liquid is a more effective approach for evaluating the protection performance of materials used to manufacture PPC and masks against pathogens than the current method based on visual observation. For instance, HBV DNA concentration in the whole blood of infected patients was found to be 7.5 × 10 5 − 4.3 × 10 8 copies/ml; 19) HBV-infected patient blood contains 37.5 − 2.15 × 10 4 copies HBV DNA/0.05 μl. Thus, HCWs are at high risk of HBV infection, given that a previous study reported that the minimum amount required for transmission of HBV is approximately 30 copies in the case of chimpanzees 20) .