Introduction respiratory diseases
There are different types of biological agents such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms which could be able to have a direct effect on human health. Among them, inhalation viruses are more important because of their rapid and sometimes uncontrollable transmission. Some of them, like SARS and MERS, became a threat to human health in recent decades. (1)
Nowadays, a virus named Covide-19 is causing the infection of more than 229 million people and more than 4.7 million deaths in the world (2). The speed of the outbreak and the number of cases has prompted the World Health Organization to announce an epidemic situation. At the same time, the different studies on the prevention methods and fabrication of the medical solutions have been evaluated. But, production of the vaccine and medical drugs takes time and needs a complete study on their effects.
Why need to wear a face mask?
On the other hand, the most important way of transmission is direct physical contact between a carrier or infected person and a healthy person. So, breaking the chains of transmission is often proposed to slow down this spread and have time to control the situation and deal with epidemics. An emergency solution could be to wear a mask, gloves, and in severe situations containment.
Face masks are considered a suitable method to protect people against respiratory viruses. There are different types of them and their efficiency of protection depends on the raw materials which are used for their fabrication such as the textile, polymeric materials, etc. The main function of these masks is often based on adsorption and filtering systems.