Updated Friday, June 18, 2010; 06:20 PM
By Stacy Moniot Covering your nose and mouth whenever you cough or sneeze is a common reminder during flu season because it prevents particles from landing on surfaces and spreading through contact. "You open a doorknob, you get it on your hands and then you wipe your eyes and bam!" said Steve Davis, the director of clinical research for WVU Emergency Medicine, "you have the flu. What we've started to show through our collaboration with NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) is that may not be the case." The researchers collected air samples in the Urgent Care facility during the flu season in 2009. They found the flu virus in very small airborne particles traveling more than six or seven feet and easily inhaled. "This is an air sampler that we've got," William Lindsley, a NIOSH biomedical researcher said, pointing to a collection system standing on a tall tripod. "Here are these yellow units that pull air out of the room." Stationary collectors measured exposure to patients, and backpacks gauged the impact on doctors and nurses. "So you can imagine if we have another epidemic, flu epidemic or swine flu epidemic," Davis said, "we certainly want the health care workers in place to be able to take care of patients." Once they understand the virus, they can control the environment in clinics through factors like air flow and humidity to keep flu patients from spreading the virus to other patients and health care workers. "There are things that we might be able to do other than just wearing masks to be able to decrease infection," Davis said, "and ultimately that's the goal of this process." The next step is to find out if those particles still carry the live flu virus, meaning anyone could become infected by just inhaling the virus. Davis and Lindsley are working to develop the technology to test that possibility. |
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