A Safer Suit
Health care workers battling Ebola on the front lines in West Africa work in oppressive heat and face many potentially deadly hazards—all of which are exacerbated by the protective gear they wear while treating patients.
Last fall, the Whiting School’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design partnered with Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins health care affiliate, to enter the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge to create a better Ebola suit.
The Johns Hopkins team collaborated on a prototype for the new protective suit with a few goals in mind: Make it comfortable to wear, easier and safer to remove, and inexpensive. The resulting ingenious design was one of five winners selected from more than 1,500 entrants. It was also presented to President Obama, appeared at New York’s Fashion Week, and now is being fast-tracked for production.