Cost effective reusable gowns for routine use in hospital and laboratory: a necessity arising of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has started a paradigm shift in working in a hospital or laboratory and airborne precautions have become equally significant as universal blood and body fluid precautions. Use of PPE including surgical masks or N95FFR is becoming a norm and this has led to scarcity of PPE for healthcare workers. We have prepared gowns for healthcare and laboratory workers made from a reusable material and tested with various disinfectants and heat. The cloth could tolerate repeated exposures to heat, alcohol, hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide, but was damaged by phenol. Since this impermeable material did not allow the air to pass, we used a cool vest made up of indigenous “Khadi” cloth with pockets containing phase change material. The cost of whole reusable assembly of gown and cap was Indian Rupees 250 (1USD=76INR). This can be used in healthcare workers in hospital and community as well as people in diagnostic and research laboratories as a cost effective PPE.