Alberta Health Services has started collecting N95 masks for the possibility of sterilizing and reusing them. AHS made the announcement that masks may be reused last Wednesday when the province’s modelling data was released.
At the time, AHS President and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu said some initial testing had been done that showed N95 masks could be steam sterilized.
A statement from AHS on Wednesday said N95 1870+ respirators are being collected from intensive care units in the Calgary and Edmonton zones and that approximately 80 per cent of health-care workers use this model. “This is a contingency plan that will allow us to preserve these used N95 respirators for potential reuse if we require additional supply in the months ahead,” reads the