Had an interesting discussion with a purveyor of FFP3 flu masks today and revisited various documents and sites to see whether my views on masks as a mitigation against catching H1N1 remain the same.

Evidence from tests carried out by the Health Protection Agency show that you have 100 times more protection from live viruses if you wear a properly fitted FFP3 mask so as a personal choice it makes sense if you think that the risk of catching the flu is very high and the symptoms of the flu become more severe (or you have a heightened risk profile due to an underlying condition).

For companies you have to balance the legal requirements to provide adequate Personal Protective Equipment based on a risk assessment. If you decide to provide (that’s got a nice ring to it!) then you need to make sure they are fitted – which opens up a world of logistical issues and costs including training staff how to don them, writing policy about when to change them and procuring suitable testing equipment to provide an audit trail that you have done as much as you can to safeguard your staff.

At the moment you need to focus on seasonal flu as the higher risk but as H1N1 continues to spread and mix with other viruses it can mutate and change into something more deadly.

The WHO alert state is likely to be increased to level 6 tomorrow in light of the virus’s sustained person to person spread. You might want to dust off your plan and check what actions you committed to back in the day when you wrote it.

@Veterus Jun 2009