Battelle machine that can disinfect N95 has arrived in Colorado
Amid a nationwide shortage in critical personal protection equipment needed to keep health care workers safe as they battle the novel coronavirus, Colorado is importing a new tool designed to disinfect masks so they can be reused.
The Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System, which was installed Thursday at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Brighton, can disinfect up to 80,000 N95 respirators every day, the Colorado State Emergency Operations Center said in a news release.
Colorado has received approval for two systems, and officials are working to find a location for the second, the news release said.
The decontamination systems use vapor-phase hydrogen peroxide to decontaminate N95 respirators of biological contaminants, including SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19. A single respirator can be reused up to 20 times without degradation, state health officials said.
All health care personnel are eligible for the free decontamination, including emergency medical service personnel, nurses, physicians, therapists, dentists and more.
The state provided step-by-step instructions on how to sign up:
- To get N95 respirators cleaned, health care providers must first fill out an enrollment form at battelle.org/decon.
- Battelle will return an email with links to the enrollment contract, instructions and the Battelle point of contact.
- The enrollee will be given a three-digit code, which must be written on the respirators with permanent marker.
- The respirators need to be unsoiled, free of blood, mucus, makeup, lip balm, etc. All masks should be placed into a single plastic bag, with the bag tied off when it is full. Any soiled masks will be thrown out. The bag must be placed into a second plastic bag that should be wiped down with disinfectant.
- The respirators must be placed into a shipping box and labeled with the three-digit code and a biohazard sticker.
- The enrollee contacts a shipper to coordinate pickup and delivery.
Further instructions can be found here.
As states around the country faced serious shortages in masks during the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration approved the Ohio-based Battelle company to being sanitizing masks. The company has now deployed machines and workers to sanitize masks in New York City, Boston, Illinois, Washington state and Ohio.
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