Redesigning Protective Gear for Health Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leveling up the “Aerosol Box”
Main Article Content
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, protection, personnel, health, CubeDV, box, aerosol, workers, protective gear, pandemic, infection risk
Abstract
Background and Objective: During the last decade, Venezuela has suffered several crises concerning its health, socio-economic, and political institutions. While having a minimum wage of roughly $2.32 US dollars per month, and a precarious quality and coverage of public services (such as water, public transportation, electricity, and Internet services), the COVID-19 virus struck the nation. This pathology became a pandemic quickly since its transmission occurs mainly through contact with the secretions of infected patients or with contaminated surfaces. Health workers face a higher risk of infection than the rest of the population. For this reason, the objective of this work is to reduce the threat that medical personnel face while working with COVID-19 patients and redesigning the original “spray box,” to avoid further deterioration of the health institutions. The cooperation and support of the Universidad Simon Bolivar (USB) and the Hospital de Clinicas Caracas (HCC), as well as the job of the manufac-turer companies, was exceptional for accomplishing this work.
Materials and Methods: To develop the prototype, the following phases were carried out: (a) A sketch was created; (b) A 3-D CD model was created; (c) The prototype was manufactured; (d) The prototype was improved; and (e) The effectiveness and safety tests were carried out.
Results: The research team produced protective gear for the safety and health of medical personnel when attending patients with COVID-19 to help limit the spread of the virus. This instrument was called "Cube de Vie" (CubeDV).
Conclusions: The work demonstrates that disregarding the struggling circumstances Venezuela faces daily, it was possible to solve a problem that threatened public health globally, to fight the serious COVID-19 pandemic. CubeDV was a result in a time of crisis and added another tool in the fight against the virus. This gear is just one example of our longing to win this fight and we hope it will represent significant help for people involved in fighting against this crisis.
Downloads
Abstract 1333 | PDF Downloads 682
References
2.OMS. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 72. OMS. April 2020. Available at:: https://www.who.int/es/home
3. Li Q, Guan X, Wu P, et al. Early transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China, of novel coronavirus-infected pneu-monia. N Engl J Med 2020 Mar 26;382(13):1199–207.
4. Chan JF, Yuan S, Kok KH, et al. A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster. Lancet 2020 Feb 15;395(10223):514–23.
5. Brewster DJ, Chrimes NC, Thy BT Do, et al. Consensus statement: Safe Airway Society principles of airway management and tracheal intubation specific to the COVID-19 adult patient group. Med J Austr March 2020. Available at: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/consensus-statement-safe-airway-society-principles-airway-management-and-tracheal
6. Guo ZD, Wang ZY, Zhang SF, et al. Aerosol and surface distribution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in hospital wards, Wuhan, China, 2020. Emerg Infect Dis 2020 Apr 10;26.
7. Romaguera R, et al. Consideraciones sobre el abordaje invasivo de la cardiopatía isquémica y estructural durante el brote de coronavirus COVID-19. REC Interv Cardiol. 2020. https://doi.org/10.24875/RECIC.M20000119.
8. Globerno de Espana. Manejo clínico de pacientes con enfermedad por el nuevo coronavirus (COVID-19) Avail-able at: https://www.sedar.es/images/site/NOTICIAS/coronavirus/Protocolo-manejo-clinico-COVID-19.pdf
9. Canelli R, Connor C, González M, et al. Barrier enclosure during endotracheal intubation. N Engl J Med 2020; 382:1957–58.
10. Mijares R, Utrera N, Sierra Z, et al. Quality certification of medical devices in Venezuela: Process Developed by Simón Bolívar University, Caracas-Venezuela. Global Clin
Article Sidebar
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author(s) must obtain all parties consent [co-author(s), others if applicable] and submit the acceptance of Copyright Agreement with their paper. Written permission must be obtained by the author for material that has been published in copyrighted material; this includes tables, figures, and quoted text that exceeds 150 words. A copy of all permissions must accompany the manuscript when published in copyrighted material. The author(s) hereby represents and warrants that the paper is original and that he/she is the author of the paper, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required. Author(s) must clearly indicate that approval for publication has been received in cases of institutional ownership.
In all submitted material authors retain all copyrights; however, the GlobalCE Journal reserve the right to reprint all or portions of the article and to post all or part of the article online. GlobalCE Journal reserves the right to edit manuscripts as required to publish in the journal. Authors are responsible for obtaining any and all clearances as appropriate. Unless stated otherwise, all articles are open-access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and original work (e.g. first published in the Global Clinical Engineering Journal) is properly cited with the original URL and bibliographic citation information. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on www.Globalce.org well as the copyright and license information must be included. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
