The current practice for pandemic diseases transmitted by airborne particles is the use of respiratory personal protective equipment (PPE), of which the most common is the disposable N95 filtering face-piece respirator (FFR). However, these FFRs are typically disposed of after a single use to avoid contamination and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global shortage of these N95 FFRs.

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One strategy to combat this shortage is to reuse the FFRs after proper decontamination. Recently, several groups have published protocols on the use of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) for the decontamination of N95 masks. Yet, many of these protocols rely on commercial systems that are not so widely available across all medical institutions across the globe.

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A UVGI system developed by Rice 360°, Malawi University of Science of Technology, and the University of Malawi – The Polytechnic that is designed for low-resource settings through the reuse of readily available and inexpensive materials.

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A manual summarizing this system is available here.