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Aided by a $25,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department recently purchased a rapid decontamination system. Photo by Victor Maccharoli.

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Sheriff's officials target infectious diseases

By ERIC LINDBERG — April 15, 2010

Local sheriff’s deputies have a new weapon to protect themselves — not from criminals, but from the infectious diseases they might carry.

Aided by a $25,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department recently purchased a rapid decontamination system that can disinfect a squad car or jail cell in a matter of minutes.

“The purpose of this is not only protecting the patrol officer, but to make the backseat as clean as possible,” said Jim Cleary, a representative of Advanced Health Technologies who trained sheriff’s officials and demonstrated how the device works during a press conference yesterday.

After punching in a few commands on a touch-screen computer, he stood back and let the Zimek Micro Mist System go to work. The device, resembling a large vacuum cleaner, expelled a fine mist of disinfectant into the closed squad car through a tube sealed to the window.

After a few minutes, Cleary disconnected the equipment and opened the vehicle’s doors, allowing faint wisps of the cleaner to escape.

“You can probably do six to seven vehicles in an hour and decontaminate the entire fleet in a short period of time,” he said.

The cleaning agent used by the machine, a fairly nontoxic disinfectant used primarily in the healthcare industry since the 60s, kills bacteria, staphylococcus, hepatitis, HIV, influenza and other pathogens.

Although most commonly used as a spray, the cleaner is converted by the device into extremely small particles that are smaller than a micron, or one thousandth of a millimeter.

“It’s a touchless system, so you don’t need to wipe anything down,” Cleary said. “You can just get in and drive away.”

While the equipment will be offered to other law enforcement agencies, fire departments, ambulance companies and public health organizations in the region, the portable device will be kept at the jail where it is expected to be used extensively.

“I know we’re definitely going to be using it for cells here for prisoners with infectious diseases,” Commander Thomas Jenkins said. “We have a lot of people come into the facility who are ill.”

Sheriff’s officials hope the decontamination system will cut down on sick leave among deputies and the transmission of illnesses among prisoners.

While it’s often difficult to determine how a disease is spread, Jenkins said there have been cases of deputies contracting an illness from a prisoner.

“Part of it is peace of mind,” he added.

Deputies will be able to leave any item in their vehicle, such as a laptop or a cell phone, without concern that it might be damaged. It takes approximately three minutes for the system to complete its cycle, followed by a brief wait to allow the cleaner to dissipate.

Cleary said the cost of operating the system ranges from 25 to 32 cents per minute, meaning it costs less than $1 to disinfect a patrol car.

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great idea : 4/15/2010

About time! The last time I rode in the back of a patrol car I got some doughnut holes stuck to my back... gross!

Buttfloss Barney

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is bleach a good cleaning agent for the ceith infection? : 4/21/2010

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