UV decontamination of personal protective equipment with idle laboratory biosafety cabinets during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is crucially important to the safety of both patients and medical personnel, particularly in the event of an infectious pandemic. As the incidence of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) increases exponentially in the United States and many parts of the world, healthcare provider demand for these necessities is currently outpacing supply. In the midst of the current pandemic, there has been a concerted effort to identify viable ways to conserve PPE, including decontamination after use. In this study, we outline a procedure by which PPE may be decontaminated using ultraviolet (UV) radiation in biosafety cabinets (BSCs), a common element of many academic, public health, and hospital laboratories. According to the literature, effective decontamination of N95 respirator masks or surgical masks requires UV-C doses of greater than 1 Jcm-2, which was achieved after 4.3 hours per side when placing the N95 at the bottom of the BSCs tested in this study. We then demonstrated complete inactivation of the human coronavirus NL63 on N95 mask material after 15 minutes of UV-C exposure at 61 cm (232 μWcm-2). Our results provide support to healthcare organizations looking for methods to extend their reserves of PPE.
Competing Interests: JGS, the senior author, has, subsequent to this research, led a related patent for a UV decontamination device (PCT/US2021/022771, led march 17, 2021: \Decontam-ination System"). This does not alter our adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, and in fact, the patent was a reaction to this work, and so therefore was entirely performed subsequently to this research. Further, beyond the fact that the patent is for a UV-C decontamination chamber, it has little to do with this research.