Rapid Deployable Personal Respirators for Healthcare Professionals in Treating COVID-19 Patients (ESPOiR)

被世界卫生组织（who）宣布为“公共卫生紧急状态”的新型冠状病毒感染症（COVID-19）正在韩国社会爆发。截至2020年4月3日，全球已报告100多万例确诊病例和5.5万例死亡。一线医护人员始终面临着感染新冠病毒的危险。在意大利，估计有20%的应对COVID-19疫情的医护人员被感染，占该国病例的9%。个人防护装备（PPE）短缺被认为是最严重的问题。个人呼吸器是另一种选择，但它们的设计除了提供舒适外，还需要保护工人。他们使用风扇通过过滤器吸入空气，并将其输送到封闭的引擎盖或口罩中。然而，大多数呼吸器产品都是不可用的，而且价格昂贵或笨重，噪音大，不舒服，不符合加拿大健康和美国食品药品法案（FDA）的标准。因此，阿尔伯塔大学的研究人员旨在为卫生专业人员提供快速，安全，强大，负担得起且可用的解决方案，以帮助保护他们在重症监护设施中。

Our society is facing a unique coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) that has been declared as a public health emergency by the World Health Organization. Globally, until April 3rd, 2020, there have been reported more than 1 Million confirmed cases and 55,000 deaths. The frontline medical staff are in constant danger of being exposed to COVID-19 infection. In Italy, an estimated 20% of healthcare workers responding to the COVID-19 outbreak have become infected and makeup 9% of the country's cases. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) shortage has been described as the most severe issue. Personal respirators are an alternative, but their design needs to protect workers besides providing comfort. They use a fan to draw in air through a filter and deliver it to an enclosed hood or face mask. However, most respirator products are unavailable and are expensive or heavy, noisy, uncomfortable, and not conforming to Canada Health and U.S. Food and Drugs Act (FDA) standards. Therefore, the researchers at the University of Alberta aims to support health professionals with a speedy, safe, robust, affordable, and available solution to help protect them in intensive care facilities.