Management of personal protective equipment among health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic: Practices of infection control committee of Gazi University Hospital

Abstract

"Conoronavirus Disease" (COVID-19) abbreviation is used for the identification of the new disease alerted in Wuhan city of China at the end of year 2019. COVID-19 is caused by "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2" (SARS-CoV-2). Special pandemic precautions are designed for the control of virus spread by inhaling droplets or contact touching surfaces. Authorities were concentrated on the education of healthcare workers, personal protective equipment (PPE) were pursued, and the hospital wards were re-designed during COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, infection control precautions conducted in health facilities were reviewed on the basis of practices of Infection Control Committee (ICC) of Gazi University Hospital following the first COVID-19 case reported at 11 March 2020 in our country. Technical properties of PPEs, donning and doffing procedures, recommendations of PPE for each specific clinical situation for each specific healthcare worker were evaluated in this review.