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| Masks to trap swine flu virus in disguise |
| Press Trust of India / Hong Kong Apr 28, 2009, 12:29 IST |
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As the death toll from the Mexican swine flu continues to rise, a Hong Kong based company has devised a new face mask to combat the spread of the new strain of contagious influenza, which has caused alarm in Mexico and parts of US.
The mask uses "intelligent infiltration" technology which mimics human cells, to fool and kill the viruses by attaching themselves onto it. The new anti-infective BioMask is manufactured by biotech company Filligent, which claims it is the first of its kind to kill the Influenza A virus within seconds of contact while retaining the breathability required by front-line workers and children, who are often easy prey to such contagious diseases.
Swine flu is a respiratory disease, caused by influenza type A which infects pigs. The latest form can infect humans too and can spread from person to person - probably through coughing and sneezing. It is feared that the flu can take the form of an epidemic, and the mask is an effort to prevent it.
"Humanitarian organisations and governments are on the front line of containing infection, especially among children. "We're allocating our resources to respond to their needs. The BioMask was designed specifically for situations like this," Filligent CEO Melissa Mowbray-d'Arbela said in a statement released through Asianet.
This new strain of swine flu has killed more than 81 people in Mexico till date, spreading to the United States and New Zealand. Pandemic experts say that an effective mask could reduce the number of cases from one million to just six, in the first months of a pandemic.
The CE-certified BioMask, which kills 99.9% of bacteria and viruses within a minute of contact, is made of BioFriend(TM), a technology developed by Filligent last year.
The Biomask's active internal layer detects, traps, and then rapidly kills pathogens. The layer represents a semblance of the sites of human cells on which the viruses normally attach, then destroys them by disrupting their surfaces. "We need to buy people time in order for anti-virals or vaccines to be delivered or in the case of drug resistance, to be developed," said Filligent's CEO.
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