What is Medical Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?

PPE’s consist of equipments such as isolation gowns, face masks, respirators, gloves, goggles and coveralls. The aim of PPE usage is to prevent health care workers, patients and visitors from contact of pathogens (liquid, bacteria, virüs etc.) in settings like hospitals and clinics where contamination risk is high.

Pathogens can be transferred from person to person through body iquids and respiratory channels. Therefore, the correctly used protective equipments are intended to have a barrier against the virüs and bacteria. This way, microorganisms carrying pathogens are prevented from contact to healthy people. Especially, in the current times of Covid-19 pandemic, the importance of PPE’s are well understood.

When the protective equipment used by healthcare workers are analyzed through tests, it has been found that even one-day-long-used equipments carry high levels of pathogens on themselves. Thus, universally it has been accepted that disposable (single-use) protective equipments are the most protective ones.

The widely used protective medical equipments are respectively:

1-    Latex Gloves

2-    Isolation Gowns

3-    Face Masks and Respirators

4-    Coveralls