Cooling Solution for Personal Protective Equipment

Abstract

The Ebola crisis in Western Africa continues to grow due to improper containment of the Ebola virus and infected patients. Due to hot climate, limited medical staff, and limited access to PPE (personal protective equipment) local authorities are struggling to manage the crisis. Doffing, the removal of contaminated protective gear after treating patients, is an extremely high risk task which can potentially lead to the infection among healthcare workers. However, doffing occurs as frequently as every 20 minutes due to hot climate conditions and limits the time medical professionals can comfortably wear PPE. Frequent doffing also leads to high use of disposable PPE suits adding additional expense to care for infected patients. The goal of this project is to develop a body-mounted cooling system to remove heat and moisture from the PPE suit during use. An effective cooling system could be used with any type of enclosed PPE suit and reduce frequency of doffing by increasing comfort; reducing exposure to contaminants and excessive suit consumption.