In today’s world, healthcare professionals and first responders are reusing protective respirators in a time of personal protective equipment shortages. Reuse can have adverse and even deadly consequences as respirators are used over and over, “collecting” more virus. While the COVID-19 virus may recede over the summer months, it can return with greater infection rates in the fall. Best practice is to always use a new legitimate NIOSH approved respirator. In times of supply imbalances, when that is not possible, there is Helios.
The Helios Decontamination Solution is a thermal, forced air decontamination technique that is a practical, safe, and effective way to decontaminate respirators for up to 20X reuse.
Helios is Changing Decontamination
The people and institutions at the front-lines of patient care need a practical, safe, and effective method to decontaminate respirators. Helios is different from vapor, light or liquid-based decontamination methods.
With some methods, respirators with cellulose or cotton cannot be decontaminated. Helios is safe for all respirator types and brands.
Helios can decontaminate dry respirators in 30 minutes. Moist respirators can be dried and decontaminated in 1 hour.
Respirators never leave the building. Helios is a practical, on-site decontamination solution that uses a space-efficient thermal decontamination unit that can be deployed on a floor, unit, central location, or tactical environments with a standard 120V electrical outlet. Need to scale up? Helios can scale from hundreds to millions of respirators. Need to track respirators? No problem, Helios provides an easy-to-use accountability system to track respirators by owner and decontamination cycles.
Helios is safe for people and the environment because it only uses heat to decontaminate and avoids hazardous materials that require special handling.
Humans expel about 250 ml of water when breathing throughout the day. As a result, respirators will become moist as they are used. Vapor based methods require a dry respirator to effectively decontaminate. Helios dries and decontaminates respirators at the same time. This allows Helios to decontaminate moist respirators from hours of use more quickly and effectively.
N95 Decon BLOG
The Latest on Respirator Decontamination and Safety
According to the FDA’s Press Release, over the past several months, anecdotal evidence of adverse events and other failures have swirled around Battelle’s CCDS mask decontamination system. This reporting informally came to the attention of the FDA during their PPE webinars– where multiple healthcare professionals from multiple jurisdictions raised concerns regarding the system. Everything from …
NBC News, in an investigatory piece titled “Trump administration paying huge premium for mask-cleaning machines. Which don’t do the job.” shines light on how one solution from Battelle, is grossly over-charging for mask decontamination, which may not even work. Nurses from California to Virginia are concerned about their own safety when using Battelle’s recycled masks. …
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, N95 face masks have been in short supply. Health care workers, in particular, desperately need these masks to protect themselves from the respiratory droplets of infected patients. But because of the shortage, many have to wear the same mask repeatedly. Now, researchers have tested several methods for disinfecting …
