Open Source Design of a Decontamination Device for Personal Protective Equipment

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a global shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), due to increased demand and disrupted supply chains. One way to alleviate the scarcity, while ensuring safety of healthcare personnel, is by reusing PPE after a biological decontamination process which concurrently maintains PPE material integrity and deactivates SARS-CoV-2. Currently, there is a dearth of technology for biological decontamination of PPE in Africa. The proposed research seeks to address this need through design of a low-cost device for PPE decontamination, specifically, N95 masks, face shields and safety glasses. The research will involve: 1) Developing design specifications of the device, which will be made open source i.e., licensed in such a way that the device can be studied, modified, created, and distributed by scientists and Governments across Africa and the world, 2) Building functional prototypes of the device, 3) Post-treatment structural integrity tests for N95s, face shields and safety glasses, and 4) Tests for germicidal efficacy of the device on N95s, face shields and safety glasses spiked with SARS-CoV-2. The project will be implemented by a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers from Makerere University (Uganda), Uganda Industrial Research Institute, Innovex Uganda Limited, Strathmore University (Kenya), Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) and the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH), South Africa. The proposed equipment and process will be pivotal in extending the useful lifetime of the PPE, thereby ensuring protection of health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and future anticipated epidemics Expected Outputs 1. Novel hardware and software designs for a low-cost PPE decontamination device utilizing moist heat and UVC 2. Two (2) physical device models 3. Structural integrity test reports for N95 masks, face shields and safety glasses after subjecting to decontamination protocol 4. Germicidal efficacy report after decontaminating PPE spiked with SARS-CoV-2 5. Project website on which we will release the associated hardware designs, documentation, and code under an Open-Source License 6. Two (2) journal papers 7. Three (3) conference presentations