The N95 and N100 are are rated for 95% and 99.97% efficiency against physical particles down to .3 microns. For smaller particles you’ll need a half face or full face respirator with HEPA cartridges, preferrebly a PAPR respirator. Of course no air purifying respirator is any good if you are not properly fit tested and trained on proper use.
Also keep in mind that the contaminants and micro-organisms will be on the outside of the respirator and can survive on the surface of the filter media, therefore proper training in decontamination and removal of protective wear is critical to avoid secondary exposure. I have a feeling the nurses aid in Spain was exposed by improper decontamination/PPE removal procedures.
You also need a P100. N100 is not good for hydrocarbons and will break down, so if there are any airborne solvent particles you might have breakthrough. I have never seen an N100 in the field.
The filter media does not have holes 0.3 microns (Micrometers) in diameter. There are small bubbles connected by tinier passages, so particulates don’t take a straight path through the filter, but must take multiple turns. The filters are very dense. I am an industrial hygienist (since 1991). Not an expert though, so don’t ask me that in court LOL.
Thank you for the good info. Just still trying to figure this out. Hence “Vanity” post.
See the following clip of the same material from the PANDEMIC FLU INFORMATION FORUM
Spanish Ebola case: ‘I am due to treat the patient. But I have no idea what to do’
A doctor who will treat Maria Teresa Romero Ramos, the Spanish nurse who has contracted Ebola, has launched a scathing attack on his country's training procedures
By Fiona Govan, Madrid1:33PM BST 08 Oct 2014
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11148579/Spanish-Ebola-case-I-am-due-to-treat-the-patient.-But-I-have-no-idea-what-to-do.html?
A senior doctor at the Madrid hospital where the Spanish nurse infected with Ebola is being treated has warned that staff are not sufficiently trained to deal with the virus.
His warning comes as the sixth person in Spain was put into quarantine on Wednesday morning.
Dr Santiago Yus, a specialist in intensive care with more than 30 years experience at the hospital where the six isolated patients are being treated, claimed medics have received only minimal training.
“Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I will be expected to treat the Ebola patient and nobody has even taught me to put on the protective suit,” he said in an interview with Spain's daily El Mundo newspaper.
“I am not ready, I am not trained. And it's the same with my colleagues.”
He said that he and other doctors had been given a ten-minute briefing on management of Ebola patients and shown some photographs on a wall. Two months ago they were given a demonstration on how to put on the protective suit.
“A doctor and a nurse put the suit on and took it off. The training was and is absolutely insufficient,” he said.
The warning will set off alarm bells as Spain's public health officials struggle to quell panic after a fourth nurse in Madrid – who like Maria Teresa Romero Ramos had cared for an infected Spanish missionary – was quarantined with suspected symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus.
In addition to the four nurses, Mrs Romero's husband is in quarantine, as is an engineer who returned to Spain from Nigeria.
Dr Yus is among fifteen health workers at the Carlos III hospital who have made a formal complaint to management about their lack of training in the face of the current crisis.
Mrs Romero was transferred to a specialist isolation unit at the Carlos III hospital on Monday night after testing positive for the haemorrhagic fever, becoming the first case of contracting Ebola virus outside West Africa.
It is still unclear how exactly she was infected with the virus while she was part of a team treating two missionaries repatriated from West Africa.
But sources close to the investigation into how the infection occurred have suggested Mrs Romero may not have followed proper procedure when removing her protective suit after coming into contact with the second Ebola patient.
Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69 died at the Madrid hospital on September 25, five days after being airlifted from Sierra Leone.
Miguel Pajares, 74, died there in August after his repatriation from Liberia.