Face masks are recommended to be worn while out in public. This is because face masks helps reduce the chance of the coronavirus spreading further, especially if you’re sick or if there are people who are sick around you. However, this is only prevention, but thanks to the work of researchers, they are working on a more permanent solution.
According to reports, researchers from the University of Kentucky are working on a face mask that could actually kill/neutralize the virus upon contact. How face masks prevent the virus from spreading is that it creates a filter between your nose and mouth and the outside air where the virus could be in.
The filters in the mask, assuming they’re the correct type, will have holes too small for the virus to get inside your respiratory system. However, with these masks that are being developed, not only will they prevent the virus from getting it, but it will also be able to kill it when it touches the mask itself.
According to Dibakar Bhattacharyya, a chemical engineering professor who is the director of the university’s Center of Membrane Sciences, “The novel coronavirus is covered in club-shaped ‘s-protein’ spikes, which give it its crownlike, or coronal, appearance. The protein spikes are also what allows the virus to enter host cells once in the body. This new membrane will include proteolytic enzymes that will attach to the protein spikes of the coronavirus and separate them, killing the virus.”
The mask is currently in development where according to Bhattacharyya, he estimates that it will probably take about six months to complete its development before it moves onto manufacturing.
Filed in . Read more about Coronavirus, Covid-19 and Health. Source: newsweek