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Article: Virus transfer from personal protective equipment to healthcare employees' skin and clothing.(DISPATCHES)
- Article from:
- Emerging Infectious Diseases
- Article date:
- August 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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We evaluated a personal protective equipment removal protocol designed to minimize wearer contamination with pathogens. Following this protocol often resulted in virus transfer to hands and clothing. An altered protocol or other measures are needed to prevent healthcare worker contamination.
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Caring for patients with communicable diseases places healthcare workers (HCWs) at risk. Infected HCWs may not only incur serious illness or death themselves but may spread infection to others. Methods to prevent HCW infections include vaccination (1), hand hygiene (2), and isolation of patients with communicable diseases (3).
A key aspect of ...