The FDA said it is now allowing healthcare personnel to use dry heat to enable the reuse of certain particulate-filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs), including N95 respirators, in situations where supplies are limited.

In a straight-to-final guidance, the agency said that bioburden reduction systems that use dry heat can help reduce the amount of bacteria on certain respirators, though it warned they are not decontamination systems. Under the new policy, the agency will allow the use of certain dry heat systems during the pandemic to reduce bacteria and allow single-user reuse of FFRs that would normally be thrown away.

Specifically, the agency is allowing certain dry heat systems to be used on authorized FFRs that do not have exhalation valves, do not use a duck-bill design and do not contain antimicrobial or antiviral agents.