Sat 2 Jan 2021 . Testing of 3D-printed Covid face guards and UV air treatment win Australian funding. This is a rapidly scalable, customised technology that could quickly and feasibly be utilised around the world

Sat 2 Jan 2021 . Testing of 3D-printed Covid face guards and UV air treatment win Australian funding. ‘This is a rapidly scalable, customised technology that could quickly and feasibly be utilised around the world,’ Greg Hunt says

The use of personalised 3D-printed face guards to cover gaps on the sides of masks will be tested in one of six coronavirus-related clinical trials to win funding from the Australian government.

The health minister, Greg Hunt, said on Sunday the government was providing $10m from its Medical Research Future Fund towards six trials, including of two “next-generation” vaccines developed by researchers at the University of Melbourne.

The 3D printing trial, overseen by Assoc Prof Anand Ganesan of Flinders University, has secured $973,119 of the funding. It will focus on developing facial guards to better protect healthcare workers from Covid-19.

“Mask leak with existing P2/N95 respirators is a major problem for healthcare workers,” Hunt said. “The main reason for face mask leak is the individual variability in the shape of the human face.”

The minister said the trial would test the effectiveness and feasibility of using customised 3D-printed face guards in conjunction with P2/N95 respirators.

“This is a rapidly scalable, customised technology that could quickly and feasibly be utilised around the world,” he said.

Turning to other trials to win funding, Hunt said researchers would also “test the effectiveness of an inexpensive and rapidly implementable germicidal ultraviolet air-treatment strategy, used in conjunction with existing infection control measures, as a means to reduce rates of respiratory viral infection in residential aged care facilities”.

The federal government has come under pressure over inadequate measures to protect aged care residents from Covid-19 outbreaks. So far, 685 deaths have been recorded among people living in Australian government-subsidised residential aged care facilities – 655 of them in Victoria.

Hunt said volunteers aged between 18 and 75 years would be recruited by mid-2021 for an accelerated clinical trial of two new Covid-19 vaccines overseen by University of Melbourne researchers.

He said these “next-generation” vaccines offered “a number of potential advantages to ‘first-generation’ Covid-19 vaccines, and do not require storage in the extremely low temperatures needed for the Pfizer vaccine”.