What Personal Protective Equipment Would Be Needed To Care for Patients with Pandemic Influenza?
Among the gaps in knowledge regarding pandemic influenza is the mechanism of human-to-human transmission of influenza (10). The Institute of Medicine recommendation (10) to consider all transmission routes probable and consequential was accepted. Precautions against standard, contact, droplet, and airborne transmission (13) were incorporated into the plan. We assumed that sole use of disposable N95 respirators would be prohibitively expensive or otherwise not possible because of global shortages (14). Instead, we decided that staff with prolonged periods of exposure (e.g., physicians, nurses, respiratory technicians, selected housekeepers) would be issued and that just-in-time fit testing, a reusable elastomeric half-face mask with 3 sets of filters, would be used. We estimated that we would need ≈1,000 of these masks and reusable goggles for each 50,000 patients served (on the basis of the size and catchment population of one of our medium-size facilities). Disposable masks would be l
