When dealing with infection control, particularly in medical or healthcare settings, it’s important that janitors are wearing the proper equipment to protect themselves from contagious, infectious disease. This is particularly imperative during any type of outbreak, including influenza.

Employees must be provided the right personal protective equipment, or PPE. When handling cleaning chemicals, janitors should be provided with protection as specified on material safety data sheets, which may include gloves, masks to cover the mouth and nose, safety glasses and protective aprons or smocks.

Those items, as well as more protective clothing, may also be used to protect front-line workers from a pandemic or illness threat during an outbreak.