Virus penetration tests are used to evaluate barrier effectiveness.
Questions remain, however.
An understanding of how a virus is transported through passageways in a barrier would be invaluable in accurately assessing the risk associated with barrier use. Unfortunately, experimental investigations involving such passageways are difficult to perform, owing to the small dimensions involved. OST researchers have consequently developed a mathematical model for analyzing and predicting virus transport through barriers. Once the model has been calibrated by specifying the rate constant, it can predict virus concentration throughout a barrier pore under a wide variety of conditions. The rate constants for four bacterial viruses interacting with latex in a saline medium have been determined by using an apparatus that employed a virus suspension flowing between two closely spaced latex sheets.