Personal Protective Equipment for Filovirus Epidemics: A Call for Better Evidence

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is an important part of worker protection during filovirus outbreaks. The need to protect against a highly virulent fluid-borne pathogen in the tropical environment imposes a heat stress on the wearer that is itself a safety risk. No evidence supports the choice of PPE employed in recent outbreaks, and standard testing procedures employed by the protective garment industry do not well simulate filovirus exposure. Further research is needed to determine the appropriate PPE for filoviruses and the heat stress that it imposes. Keywords. Ebola; heat stress disorders; hemorrhagic fever; protective clothing. The filovirus is the archetypal biohazard. A small infec-tious dose causes highly lethal disease for which there is currently no specifically effective treatment. A high death toll among healthcare workers who care for pa-tients with Ebola and Marburg virus diseases is a fearful hallmark of filovirus outbreaks. Healthcare worker pro-tection is one of the principal objectives of the interna-tional response to filovirus outbreaks