Flinders University and Detmold will lead a seminar series on “Personal Protective Equipment for COVID-19” with colleagues from the ASEAN region.

Detmold, along with other manufacturers from the ASEAN region, will be presenting their success stories on establishing a face mask production manufacturing facility as part of the ASEAN Virtual Seminar Series, which is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-ASEAN Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Flinders University’s Medical Device Research Institute (MDRI) has received funding from the Australian Government’s Australia-ASEAN Council to share expertise gained in establishing a dedicated Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) testing facility in Adelaide with counterparts in the ASEAN region to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The test lab currently services more than 20 clients, who otherwise would have needed to send their face masks and surgical gowns overseas for accreditation.

Through a series of three online seminars, the seminar series will present a panel of experts from the region to share technical knowledge and experiences related to face mask and gown testing and manufacturing with universities and industry. The seminars will cover topics including:

• protective equipment testing and national and international standards (on 30 March)
• mask manufacturing; and correct mask fitting (on 25 May)
• education for health professionals (on 27 July)

Speakers for the first seminar on 30 March include:

• Flinders University’s Professor Karen Reynolds, from the Medical Device Research Institute, sharing her experience in setting up a PPE testing lab in response to COVID-19.
• Helen Lising, talking about the experiences of Filipino face mask manufacturer Filsheild during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Associate Professor Jittima Amie Luckanagul, on establishing a PPE test lab at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.
• Professor Jason Monty, University of Melbourne, on designing a ventilation hood for hospital beds to help contain COVID-19 spread.

The Medical Device Research Institute, which conducts world-leading collaborative research to deliver innovative solutions to the medical and allied health sector, continues to help international partners link with counterparts from universities, manufacturers, health and scientific organisations to form a network of people interested in face masks and surgical gowns.

The seminar series, which will also address the issue of facemask fitting though a short multilingual facemask fitting instructional video, aims to initiate dialogue between Australian and ASEAN researchers and industry through sharing knowledge in the seminars and subsequent networking links for other possible collaborations and subsequent research across the region.

For more information or to register for the events, visit the test labs webpage.