Swine Flu Fears Generate Interest In UV Disinfection Technologies ... Again

Main Category: Swine Flu
Also Included In: Flu / Cold / SARS;  Public Health;  Respiratory / Asthma
Article Date: 06 May 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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UV germicidal lamps have been used to control outbreaks of measles, mumps, flu and other airborne respiratory illnesses in schools and hospitals since the 1930's. UVGI (Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation) systems successfully reduced infections in Mexican schools during a 1955 Mumps epidemic and helped eliminate a Varicella (Chicken pox) epidemic in New York that same year. More recently, UVGI units were installed into Hong Kong hospitals to control the worldwide near-pandemic of SARS.

These illnesses, plus other respiratory infections such as the Flu (all types), are highly contagious airborne diseases spread through contact with respiratory secretions from an infected person (a cough or sneeze). Droplets become airborne and enter the eyes, nose, or mouth of another person; or they settle on surfaces and are easily transferred to our mouths and eyes after contact with our hands.

That's why experts advise frequent hand washing. But clean hands are quickly contaminated during contact with unclean surfaces. Hospital studies show that about 50% of the surfaces we touch carry infectious strains of virus and bacteria, and that some pathogens -- the germs that make us sick -- can survive on surfaces for months! Public keyboards, elevator buttons, phones, ink pens, shopping carts and even magazines in a doctor's office have been found to be more highly contaminated than even public toilets.

Ultraviolet Germicidal energy neutralizes and destroys invisible microbes that cause infection and disease. And even though these microbes are in an evolutionary race to become more drug resistant, there are no known pathogens resistant to a killing dose of UV germicidal energy. None.

In a landmark 2001 British Medical Journal (Lancet) study, researchers summarized that UVGI ".could be useful in the broader effort to combat contagious diseases such as flu, SARS, tuberculosis and cold viruses. If a large number of schools, office buildings and residences were modified (to included UV-C).airborne respiratory diseases could be eradicated.."

Source
Lumalier Corporation

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