A cloth mask for under-resourced healthcare settings in the COVID19 pandemic
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A cloth mask for under-resourced healthcare settings in the COVID19 pandemic Michael Sugrue 1,2 & Derek O’Keeffe 3 & Ryan Sugrue 4 & Lorraine MacLean 5 & Manvydas Varzgalis 1,2 Received: 3 April 2020 / Accepted: 16 April 2020 # Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland 2020
Abstract Introduction COVID19 pandemic poses a global threat, with many unknowns. The potential for resource limited countries to suffer huge mortality is of major concern. Prevention and risk reduction strategies are paramount in the current absence of effective treatment or a vaccine. There is a global shortage of personal protective equipment. Aims This short paper describes the rationale for and development of a cloth homemade mask and has a step by step video. Results The template is reproducible around the world and is both washable and cheap. Conclusion This article describes a simple way to make a cloth mask, suitable if medical masks are not available. Keywords COVID19 . Face mask . Infectious disease . Pandemic . Personal protection equipment . SARS-CoV-2
Introduction The COVID19 pandemic drives the need to maximise the use of available resources to protect people from contracting the virus to minimise morbidity and mortality. There are universal reports of limitations on personal protective equipment (PPE), and many countries in resource-challenged regions have minimal or no reserves [1]. This will result in an inability to control the pandemic and poor outcomes. There are a wide range of PPE and very robust criteria to assess its efficacy and suitability [2]. Facial morphology and hair may confound the standards of protection and tolerance of the protection [3].
* Michael Sugrue [email protected] 1
Department of Surgery, Letterkenny University Hospital and Donegal Clinical Research Academy, Ireland, Letterkenny, Ireland
2
Emergency Surgery Outcome Advancement Project, Centre for Personalised Medicine, Letterkenny, Ireland
3
Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
4
Department of Plastic Surgery, University Hospital Galway Ireland, Galway, Ireland
5
Zip Yard Dress Maker, Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland
Doremalen and colleagues have recently shown that SARS-CoV-2 remained viable in aerosols for over 3 hours, with a reduction in infectious titre from 103.5 to 102.7 TCID50 per litre of air [4]. Over a decade ago, van der Sande identified that a tea towel offered some protection, all be it suboptimal compared to an FFP2 commercial mask [5]. The aim of this report is to share the details for the design and rapid fabrication of a cloth face mask, with the potential to provide the population with alternatives when medical grade face masks are not available.
Methods A dress maker (MV) designed multiple prototypes of cloth face masks and after six versions came up with the pattern shown in Fig. 1. The base of the parabolic curved pattern for this full size adult mask was 29 cm. The curve of the mask creates a duckbilled design simi
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