The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has strained the personal protective equipment resources tremendously in healthcare institutions. Our team at Centre for Innovation has developed a decontamination process using ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to decontaminate the face shields, retinoscope barriers and other protective units which are being used by our hospital staff. UVC light (254 nm) can quickly eliminate a wide variety of viruses, bacteria and harmful pathogens in a short cycle time. Taking into consideration the guidelines provided by CDC and ICMR, a standard operating protocol has been devised to decontaminate PPE and allow reuse, significantly reducing the requirement for the same. 

INVERSE SQUARE LAW

As the distance increases, the intensity of the light decreases. At the 2 feet distance, our setup reaches 500 mJ/sq cm which is many fold times higher than the required UV dose.

THREE LAYERS OF SAFETY

1. A safety curtain which protects the staff from the UV exposure in case of an inadvertent entry.

2. A red light indicator outside the room indicating the ongoing decontamination process.

3. The UV light ON/OFF switch is located outside the room.

SHORT DISINFECTION CYCLE

Within 15 mins, the setup can disinfect a batch of 50-60 visors. No physical damage or functional properties of materials are reduced in this cycle time.

irradiated FROM two SIDES

Since UV light is not transmitted through physical objects. The light sources arrangement in our setup ensures that all the surfaces are evenly disinfected without rotating them again

VALIDATION VIA CULTURE PLATE METHOD

Using the biological indicators, the half culture plate is exposed to the UV light at the desired points in the rope (i.e at the center and the rope end) to check the efficacy of the overall setup.

Our team is evaluating the impact of UV Decontamination of the visors and other protective equipment’s used daily in the hospital. The parameters like monitoring the product quality after several UV cycles, the cost benefit analysis and safety standards while reusing PPE are considered. A detailed evaluation study observing the system for 30-45 days is being conducted and will be available soon !!!