Our study revealed the need for the development of improved ventilation and air-conditioning systems in an isolation ward or a general hospital ward for infectious respiratory diseases. The outbreak in Ward 8A, which was in a general hospital and could house nearly 40 patients, demonstrated the cross-infection risks of respiratory infectious diseases in hospitals if a potential highly infectious patient was not identified and isolated. Our example simulation, which extended the SARS Busters’ design for an isolation room to Ward 8A, demonstrated that there was room for improvement to minimize cross-infection in large general hospital wards.
I have not read through all of it yet, but even the abstract seems to suggest that someone agrees with you, thinks it contributed to that outbreak, and has at least started looking into it.
I’m not sure how extensive the suggested edits were, but I do have to comment that in all likelihood, sporadic crisis-based funding is not conductive to altering the ventilation architecture of a large fraction of hospitals.
(It has been my weak impression that pandemic-related funding has historically relied heavily on a tiny handful of interested politicians and on taking full advantage of policy-windows whenever there’s an outbreak or a scare.)
If there is a good argument that a ventilation redesign would help prevent pneumonia or other common hospital-acquired-infections, I suspect that would be a good thing to look into and add to the proposal. If true, it would make the argument a lot stronger, and also likelier to get implemented and upkept.
SARS is primarily transmitted by bio-aerosol droplets or direct personal contacts. We present a study of environmental evidence of possible airborne transmission in a hospital ward during the largest nosocomial SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in March 2003.
Retrospective on-site inspections and measurements of the ventilation design and air distribution system were carried out on July 17, 2003. Limited on-site measurements of bio-aerosol dispersion were also carried out on July 22. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to analyze the bio-aerosol dispersion in the hospital ward. We attempted to predict the air distribution during the time of measurement in July 2003 and the time of exposure in March 2003.
The predicted bio-aerosol concentration distribution in the ward seemed to agree fairly well with the spatial infection pattern of SARS cases. Possible improvement to air distribution in the hospital ward was also considered.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:
Our study revealed the need for the development of improved ventilation and air-conditioning systems in an isolation ward or a general hospital ward for infectious respiratory diseases. The outbreak in Ward 8A, which was in a general hospital and could house nearly 40 patients, demonstrated the cross-infection risks of respiratory infectious diseases in hospitals if a potential highly infectious patient was not identified and isolated. Our example simulation, which extended the SARS Busters’ design for an isolation room to Ward 8A, demonstrated that there was room for improvement to minimize cross-infection in large general hospital wards.
Here’s a paper on SARS-1 that seems highly-relevant:
Role of air distribution in SARS transmission during the largest nosocomial outbreak in Hong Kong.
I have not read through all of it yet, but even the abstract seems to suggest that someone agrees with you, thinks it contributed to that outbreak, and has at least started looking into it.
I’m not sure how extensive the suggested edits were, but I do have to comment that in all likelihood, sporadic crisis-based funding is not conductive to altering the ventilation architecture of a large fraction of hospitals.
(It has been my weak impression that pandemic-related funding has historically relied heavily on a tiny handful of interested politicians and on taking full advantage of policy-windows whenever there’s an outbreak or a scare.)
If there is a good argument that a ventilation redesign would help prevent pneumonia or other common hospital-acquired-infections, I suspect that would be a good thing to look into and add to the proposal. If true, it would make the argument a lot stronger, and also likelier to get implemented and upkept.
Abstract: