Veterinary Virology and Animal Viral Diseases, Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, FARAH Research Centre, University of Liège, 4000, Liège, Belgium.
Department of Chemistry, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada.
Photochem Photobiol Sci. 2024 Feb;23(2):215-223. doi: 10.1007/s43630-023-00514-1. Epub 2024 Jan 2.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) reuse, first recommended in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, can mitigate shortages in crisis situations and can greatly reduce the environmental impact of typically single-use PPE. Prior to safe reuse, PPE must be sanitized and contaminating pathogens-in current circumstances viruses in particular-must be inactivated. However, many established decontamination procedures are not equitable and remain unavailable in low-resource settings. In mid-2020, an interdisciplinary consortium of researchers first studied the potential of implementing cheap and easy-to-use antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation (aPDI) using methylene blue as photosensitizer to decontaminate face masks and filtering facepiece respirators. In this perspective piece, we describe the development of this novel method, discuss recent advances, and offer insights into how equitable PPE decontamination via methylene blue-based aPDI may be integrated into circular economy policies in the healthcare sector.
个人防护设备 (PPE) 的重复使用，最初是在 SARS-CoV-2 大流行的背景下被推荐的，可以减轻危机情况下的短缺问题，并极大地减少通常一次性 PPE 对环境的影响。在安全重复使用之前，必须对 PPE 进行消毒，并且必须使污染的病原体（目前情况下尤其是病毒）失活。然而，许多既定的消毒程序并不公平，在资源匮乏的环境中仍然无法获得。2020 年年中，一个跨学科的研究人员联盟首次研究了使用亚甲蓝作为光敏剂实施廉价且易于使用的抗菌光动力灭活 (aPDI) 以对口罩和过滤式面罩呼吸器进行消毒的可能性。在这篇观点文章中，我们描述了这种新方法的发展，讨论了最近的进展，并提出了如何通过基于亚甲蓝的 aPDI 实现公平的 PPE 消毒，将其纳入医疗保健部门的循环经济政策的思路。
