During this public health emergency, many healthcare institutions are experiencing severe shortages of N95 respirators. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of N95 Respirators. In this document the CDC recommends conventional capacity strategies, contingency capacity strategies (during expected shortages) and crisis strategies (during known shortages).
3M has been collaborating with a number of sterilization companies and institutions that are investigating ways for hospitals to safely decontaminate N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a list of decontamination systems it has authorized under Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for use during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Please see the current information on these decontamination systems and a summary of testing on the effects of each system on the filtration efficiency and integrity of 3M respiratory protection products. It is important to note that 3M’s evaluation of these systems are only in the context of impact on fit and filtration performance of select 3M N95 respirators.
