World Health Organization Updates COVID-19 PPE Guidelines to Include New Decontamination Method: Methylene Blue + Light
World Health Organization Updates COVID-19 PPE Guidelines to Include New Decontamination Method: Methylene Blue + Light
SEATTLE – The World Health Organization (WHO) just added Methylene Blue and Light as a supported Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) decontamination method in the “Rational use of personal protective equipment for COVID-19 and considerations during severe shortages” interim guidelines.
Making its first update to these PPE guidelines since April 2020, the WHO provided updated strategies for optimizing PPE use by health workers caring for patients with suspected, probable, and confirmed COVID-19, including a new section for PPE decontamination and reprocessing considerations.
The updated guidelines now state:
MBL (Methylene Blue and Light) and DH (Dry Heat) were applied to respirators and medical mask materials to test inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 and surrogate coronaviruses. The study found that both MBL and DH consistently killed SARS-CoV-2, with some heterogeneity in DH values. The findings suggest MBL could potentially be developed as a new reprocessing method.
The Development of Methods for Mask and N95 Decontamination (DeMaND) Study, cited by the WHO, sought to determine simple, efficient, and inexpensive methods to reprocess SARS-CoV-2-exposed medical masks and respirators. The study showed for the first time how Methylene Blue (MB), a common light-activated dye (LAD), can be applied to masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) to both decontaminate coronavirus-infected PPE and provide continuous inactivation of the virus.
The DeMaND Study was led by Singletto co-founders Drs. Thomas Lendvay and James Chen in collaboration with esteemed colleagues in a consortium of worldwide labs assembled through the WHO COVID-19 Task Force. Singletto has continued research into this breakthrough method, now conducting five follow-up studies in its Singletto labs around North America.
Drs. Lendvay and Chen, along with Singletto co-founder Dr. Tanner Clark, Virologist Dr. David Evans, Arbovirologist Dr. Chris Mores, Immunologist and Virologist Dr. Michael Gale, and Photochemist Dr. Belinda Heyne are leading the research – working to develop further technological advances that will make our healthcare community, and community at large, better prepared to safely fight pathogens.