Aerosols in hospitals: hazards and control
Aerosols in hospitals
What is Aerosol?
Every Particle or droplet suspended in the air either it was occurring naturally or manufactured is called Aerosol, this include dusts, fumes, smoke and mists, which could vary in size from nanometers to micrometers.
According to the previous definition, you can imagine how much Aerosols in the surrounding and how it affects the cycle of the work and safety procedures according to the workplace nature.
For healthcare activities, Aerosols in workspace may pose hazards for both Patients and medical stuff; as they can be absorbed by skin, inhaled or ingested.
it was not far, when all the world suffered of Covid-19 pandemic, and most of cases got infected due to the Airborne which is an Aerosols at fact.
hence, you can understand more what we talking about; the aerosols are everywhere and may cause fatal disease, so all the infection control specialists must be aware of how to handle the aerosols hazards.
Aerosols Control in Workspace
First of all; Aerosols should be kept away from the workspace as possible; it's a goal and a task for all the team to seek; this maybe very difficult to achieve at the first look but it's not impossible at all.
as we previously mentioned during the Covid-19 pandemic, there were very strict procedures to control the infection, and in most models they have been successful to protect the medical staff.
At the very beginning, modern healthcare facilities design standards have already included precautions for Aerosols containing; Some of these Precautions are: Wind behavior surrounding the facility, Green Areas distribution, Air dynamic inside the building .. etc.
Second role: infection control instructions should be applied properly, such as Establishing buffer zones, Routine replacement of air filters, .. etc. As they seek to prevent Aerosols spread.
We can't ignore an important fact that the air conditioning systems, specially in ICUs and Quarantine places for patients with rapidly spreading infections can be the primary source of spreading infection.
As specialists know, AC is a closed air loop and it can easily spread airborne infection through the whole system, so It is necessary to use bacterial filters to purify microbes from the atmosphere.
one more thing, for life-threatening diseases such as Covid-19, extra precautions should be applied such as using Air cleaners machine to filtrate the air.
now, we can make a brief list of required reviews of the work environment to ensure that aerosols are contained as much as possible:-
