Cool Underwear for Hot Climates

Friday, March 27, 2015

A Northern Virginia startup is trying to solve one piece of the Ebola puzzle: How to keep health workers in protective gear from collapsing from heat exhaustion.

The co-founders of Qore Performance had one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” ideas. They’ve built a base layers of shorts and sleeves and wristbands that put cooling – or heating — packs right on your arteries…

“You put these inserts into the pockets right here, you have whole body cooling just by hitting a very small number of places,” says co-founder J.D. Willcox, demonstrating by shoving a gel pack into a tight-fitting black arm sleeve.

They’ve already geared up troops… and athletes.

And co-founder Justin Li is in Geneva right now, invited by the World Health Organization to pitch the cooling system there. Qore Performance is competing in the White House Grand Ebola Challenge too.

For health workers fighting Ebola, simply preventing dehydration and heat exhaustion is a huge challenge. Take it from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who tweeted, “the suit is hot enough in Vancouver. What would it be like treating patients in West Africa?” The hope is that cool packs under all the protective gear will give them more time to help patients struggling with the disease.

Source: WUSA9 (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Health Care
Tags
infectious diseases