Personal Protective Equipment, generally referred as PPE are Specialized clothing or equipment worn by employees for protection against health and safety hazards. Personal protective equipment is designed to protect many parts of the body, i.e., eyes, head, face, hands, feet, and ears.

PPE includes gloves, medical masks, goggles or a face shield, and gowns, as well as for specific procedures, respirators (i.e. N95 or FFP2 standard or
equivalent) and aprons.

As Novel Corona virus or COVID19 can be transmitted to healthcare workers while attending to the patients, who might not have any visible symptoms, it is important to protect the health workers from infection.

World Health Organization says that –

“Based on the available evidence, the COVID-19 virus is
transmitted between people through close contact and
droplets, not by airborne transmission. The people most at
risk of infection are those who are in close contact with a
COVID-19 patient or who care for COVID-19 patients.“

However, COVID-19 virus can also be transmitted by air in closed environment, with likelihood to be more dangerous in air conditioned spaces.
A virus transmission research from Japan says micro-droplets that linger in the air after a cough, sneeze or during conversation may carry the virus. Researchers said that their experiments showed that tiny droplets, known as microdroplets that can carry viruses, are emitted when breathing heavily or speaking loudly. Please see more about same here.

Every Health worker has a different requirement of PPE.
PPE should be used based on the risk of exposure (e.g. type of activity) and the transmission dynamics of the pathogen (e.g. contact, droplet or aerosol).

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has issued a video for same for different types of health workers.

Rational use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
for corona virus disease (COVID-19) as defined by World Health Organization (WHO) are documented here.

Some of our SmartEdge Members are developing 3D printed PPE, some have developed N95 masks and some are aiding creation of low cost Face shields.

Please write to us at smartedgeteam@gmail.com if you would like to know more or buy some.