Applications of germicidal ultraviolet in infectious disease laboratories. II. An ultraviolet pass-through chamber for disinfecting single sheets of paper.

In infectious disease laboratories "contaminated" areas are sometimes physically separated from adjoining "clean" areas such as offices, libraries and conference rooms. Where such an arrangement exists, it is often desirable to preserve the separation of areas by disinfecting or sterilizing materials removed from the infectious section. The extent to which this separation of areas is needed or used depends upon the infectiousness of the organisms under study and the nature of the experiments. In some instances it is desirable to disinfect or sterilize papers used for recording data in the laboratory before they are passed to the clean area. Although sterilization can be effected by autoclaving or by treatment with ethylene oxide gas (Kaye, 1950), time or facilities may make these methods impractical. A pass-through chamber utilizing high intensity ultraviolet (UV) radiations has been developed for disinfecting single sheets of paper. The apparatus has been tested using strips of paper contaminated with four organisms.