March continues to be busy for the BCU team. The recent Hopkins On Alert quarterly newsletter, through the Johns Hopkins Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR), highlighted some of BCU’s endeavors from congressional visits to the most recent exercise. The newsletter features a myriad of topics related to institutional and personal preparedness activities. Two of BCU team members (Lauren Sauer and Bob Maloney) were also featured in different articles for their work in supporting emergency preparedness outside of high-level isolation units. The latest articles from Hopkins On Alert can be found here: http://www.hopkins-cepar.org/on-alert
In March, the BCU team met with members from Dupont, CleanSpace respirators and Jhpiego to discuss ongoing work around the design of personal protective equipment (PPE) for high consequence pathogens. Innovations in PPE, such as equipment for self-doffing, may reduce the potential for self-contamination. The BCU, in collaboration with Jhpiego, are in the process of designing a study to test the impact of PPE ensembles to reduce healthcare worker contamination.
