An Air Purifier Could Stop the Spread of Swine Flu

It seems like every sneeze in the office these days is followed by some kind of witty swine flu remark and general guffawing. No doubt thats something to be relieved about – if we’re making jokes it means things aren’t serious. As yet we’ve only seen minimal deaths and indeed cases for a pandemic of this scale. But it would be stupid of us to get complacent about this. Clearly the risk of the spread escalating is still a serious one. In the UK the health service recently distributed a leaflet to every household in the country about how to prevent the spread of swine flu germs. This leaflet can basically be boiled down to one sentence: “always sneeze into a tissue, then throw it away, wash your hands and bathe yourself in a vat of boiling elephant milk”. (OK I made the last bit up). But the point being, if government officials are willing to take things this far and risk general panic, they must be really concerned about this spreading.

Well, tissues aside, a UK company that specialises in air conditioning has come up with a novel and potentially important way of preventing swine flu. According to JS Humidifiers’ blog, an air filter could be effective in trapping and removing particles of swine flu virus from the air before it has a chance to spread.Usually, people use air purifiers to prevent allergic reactions and cleanse the air of pollutants. However the HEPA filters fitted on many air purifiers are able to trap particles of as small as 0.3 micrometers. The swine flu virus particles, just like ‘normal’ influenza particles, are aroun 80 to 120 nanometers in diameter, and therefore within the range of what a purifier would pick up.The purifiers that have an ultra violet lamp inside them are virtually guaranteed to stop the flu, as the UV light kills all airborne viruses.

This is really a remarkable discovery. Imagine if, rather than counting on people to make sure they don’t spread their germs to others, you could take the germs out of the air altogether with some strategically placed air purifiers in schools and workplaces! Is it time for governments to ensure that air purifiers are installed in large public buildings. And maybe this summer when you are considering buying a portable air conditioner for the home or workplace, you might think about cleansing the air as well as cooling it.

Tagged as: air conditioning, air purifier, air quality, swine flu, virus particles, viruses