Windows effective to reduce TB germs
LIMA (UPI) -- Opening windows can be more effective than using mechanical ventilation to reduce the risk of airborne diseases such as tuberculosis, says a U.S. study.

The spread of airborne infections in institutional settings such as hospitals, waiting rooms, prisons and homeless shelters is an important public-health problem.

This is especially true in resource-poor settings, where the prevalence of TB is highest, and where preventive measures such as negative-pressure isolation rooms are hardest to implement, according to researchers from the Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunity and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine at Imperial College London.

The researchers, led by Dr. Rod Escombe from Imperial College London, studied eight hospitals in Lima, Peru, and measured natural ventilation in 70 different rooms where infectious patients are likely to be found.

The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, found that natural ventilation when windows and doors were opened was more than double that of mechanically ventilated, negative-pressure rooms functioning at the high rates recommended by guidelines, and 18 times that of rooms with windows and doors closed.