A local exhaust ventilation system to reduce airborne ribavirin concentrations

A local exhaust hood was designed and built to capture and contain aerosol emissions of ribavirin during drug administration. The newly designed over-the-head hood is similar to the single hood currently used to administer the drug. This new hood was surrounded by an exhaust plenum to form a compound hood configuration. The exhaust plenum was connected to a filtered local exhaust air system to remove the waste aerosol. The compound hood and local exhaust ventilation system were evaluated for leak rate and inside hood aerosol concentration as a function of exhaust flow rates. This hood reduced the leak rate from an average of 98% with the traditional head hood to an average of less than 1% with the compound hood with exhaust port. The compound hood did not perform quite as well when not in use (set aside during infant caretaking) with the nebulizer remaining on. The leak rate was found to increase from an average of less than 1% to an average of 12% when trials were conducted that used a doll as a simulated patient versus trials without a doll, respectively. As regards therapeutic dose inside the hood, the system's performance may lead to an 18% to 25% decrease in inside hood concentration of aerosol entering the hood. Optimum hood operating parameters were identified. An exhaust flow rate in the range from 1.0 Lpm below to 1.0 Lpm above inlet flow rate from the small particle aerosol generator (SPAG nebulizer) reduced the leak rate to an average of less than 1%.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)