Chemical and Biological Terrorism Research and Development to Improve Civilian Medical Response (1999) / Chapter Skim
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3 Personal Protective Equipment
3 Personal Protective Equipment
Pages 34-42
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From page 34... ...
The chapter focuses primarily on protection from chemical agents, in part because of the fact that protection from hazardous chemicals will generally provide protection against biological agents as well, and in part because of the committee's belief that, by and large, biological agent incidents are not likely to be evident until well after release of the agent, at which point most agent not already in victims will have dissipated or degraded. TYPES OF PPE AND REGULATORY STANDARDS The amount and type of protection required in any hazardous materials incident depends upon the hazard and the duration of exposure anticipated, but a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 34
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From page 35... ...
Although a basic rule in selecting PPE is that the equipment be matched to the hazard, none of the ASTM permeability tests employ military nerve agents or vesicants. However, the NFPA is currently in the process of developing testing standards that will address the threat of nerve agents, cyanides, and vesicants.
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From page 36... ...
Most, if not all, other NFPA-certified commercial Level A suits are likely to provide protection from most concentrations for at least brief periods. The current focus of Hazmat team activity is, in fact, short-term operations to control or mitigate a release, rather than sustained efforts locating and extracting victims or doing site remediation.
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From page 37... ...
that can detect chemical weapons agents at the limits required results in difficulties meeting current regulatory requirements. Therefore, although PAPRs might provide adequate protection against
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From page 38... ...
The National Aeronautics and Space Program has developed a prototype Level A suit as part of their Global NBC Emergency Response Technology Program that uses cryogenic air to provide for suit cooling as well as a larger air supply. Preliminary testing has suggested significant improvements in both heat management as well as work period efficiency and duration in simulated hazardous materials incidents.
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From page 39... ...
Equipment developed in Israel included: hood-style mask and blower systems for civilian emergency responders; one size fits all hood and blower systems for adults and for children ages 3-7; and portable infant protection cribs. Collective shelter is an alternative to individual protective equipment, but would be most useful in situations in which a specific group has been targeted (e.g., use by the military)
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From page 40... ...
For example, current regulatory standards that are protective for chronic occupational exposures might be reviewed and special criteria developed. When the criteria are met hospital staff remote from an incident could potentially use PAPRs (supported by gross level monitoring)
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From page 41... ...
Since most of the biologic agents have incubation times ranging from hours to weeks between exposure and manifestation of clinical symptoms, the majority of the biological agent aerosol is likely to have dissipated from the area of release prior to recognition by first responders that a biological incident has occurred. With the exception of smallpox virus and to a lesser extent plague bacteria, person-to-person transmission of these diseases rarely occurs if "universal precautions" are maintained (e.g., gloves, gown, mask, and eye protection)
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From page 42... ...
It is important to emphasize basic principles of infectious disease control and emphasize the lack of person-to-person transmission for the majority of the biological agents when responding to such incidents, so as to maximize the available medical resources to provide care for the largest number of victims. R&D NEEDS Research and development in personal protective equipment has yielded vastly improved protection for the military and, to some extent, civilian first responders.
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