An improved muffler for eating and drinking while limiting the risk of catching Covid-19.
This is the promise of a team of Mexican researchers whose presentation videos have made the rounds on social networks.
“Ugly and ridiculous” for some Internet users, “useless” for others… What about its effectiveness?
#ComunicadoIPN 🗒️ Crea y patenta IPN nasal mascarilla para reducir contagios de SARS-CoV-2
Más información ➡️ https://t.co/XziP2xRaoo pic.twitter.com/nbiMcWJNKP
- IPN (@IPN_MX) March 9, 2021
"This is a one-of-a-kind nasal mask that will help reduce infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus - the main route of entry into the body by air," write the scientists at the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico in a statement.
This muffler, called Mask Eating, "is not intended to replace masks", warn researchers straight away.
It can be worn under a classic mask covering the entire lower part of the face and only exposed in certain situations where the mouth must be uncovered, "such as eating, drinking or during a consultation with the dentist".
VIDEO.
We present to you the nose masks.
Meals play a "central role" in contaminations, "whether in a family environment (35% of cases excluding Christmas meals), friendly (42%), or to a lesser degree professional (15%)", elsewhere indicated the Institut Pasteur in the ComCor study.
As early as March 2020 in China, a prototype similar to the Mask Eating had been developed by a doctor from the pulmonology department of Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai.
“Doctors and nurses work long hours in the hospital, and we have to take off our masks to eat or drink.
Although the time required to do so is short, the risk of infection is high, ”he explained.
"This is not enough"
Hide the nose to eat in safety?
Hélène Rossinot, a doctor specializing in public health, is “perplexed”.
Of course, she "understands the idea": "The modes of transmission are mainly by aerosols and postilions, so we try to cover as much as possible" the entry and exit doors of the virus.
But the disease is transmitted in several ways, recalls the Ministry of Health: "by projection of contaminated droplets" - the postilions - by coughing, or by sneezing for example;
"By direct physical contact" (handshake, hug, kiss, etc.);
"By indirect contact, via contaminated objects or surfaces";
finally, "by air, essentially in a confined space".
This last point, contagion by aerosols, took several months to be officially recognized.
According to Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Geneva, at least 70% of contamination is caused by this vector.
But just covering the nose "is not enough to eat while being protected," says Hélène Rossinot.
Even if, with a nasal mask, the aerosols could be limited to the nose, the mouth, it remains uncovered.
"However, it transmits both forms of the virus: postilions and aerosols," said the public health specialist.
“It's like having a two-port garden hose and plugging one up.
The water will always flow through the other hole.
»Is it better than nothing?
“I don't know,” the doctor replies.
For the moment, there is no data to point in this direction.
"
"A gadget"
For the infectious disease specialist François Bricaire, member of the National Academy of Medicine and former head of the Parisian infectious disease department of Pitié-Salpétrière, the nasal mask can “in theory” reduce “part of the transmission”.
"But that only solves a very small part of the problem," he tempers immediately.
"If, at the table, a person is infected but wears a nasal mask, the virus can still be transmitted through the mouth," he warns.
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This Mask Eating, "it's a gadget," says the infectious disease specialist: "It can be used for something, without being very useful for all that.
He is rather wary of slippages related to the practicality of the muffler and fears that its use is counterproductive.
"Some could abandon the classic mask to wear only this one," he says.
And to repeat: “This use can only be very temporary.
It is not valid in a global way ”in the fight against the epidemic.
The nasal mask developed by Mexican researchers has not yet been marketed, but negotiations are underway with a company for its manufacture, the statement said.