Medical textiles: It's present and prospects
Author(s):
Nabaneeta Gogoi and Smita Bhuyan
Abstract:
The textile industry is one of the oldest and the second largest employment generated sector in India and it covers a wide range of products from traditional textiles, household textile, woven, knitted, non- woven and technical textiles. Textile products that have wide use in different sectors like agriculture, healthcare, engineering, safety, etc. all are under the umbrella of technical textiles. It is one of the emerging and indispensable parts of the textile industry, in the field of medical, hygiene, and health care sector. Medical textile is a together effort of the textile and healthcare sector to protect and care for the human being and also protecting itself especially in the time of the global pandemic like Covid-19. The number of applications in medical fields is limitless and diverse, ranging from personal protection kit, a single thread suture to the complex composite structures from implantable structure to non- implantable ones. Besides these, finishing of textiles with natural materials can also enhance some properties of fabrics like antimicrobial, antibacterial, etc. that can hinder various infections. The main objective of this paper is to study the importance of medical textiles in the present scenario as well as in the future days.