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When a hospital patient checks out of a room, cleaning staff swoop in, disinfecting every item and surface to prevent the spread of infection. The TV remote, bedframe, call button cord, trash can lid, closet handles, door knobs — -
Spend any time in a hospital and you get the impression medical staff are scrupulous, even obsessive, about cleaning their hands. At every turn, doctors and nurses seem to be squirting out hand rub, carefully peeling off gloves and gowns, -
Hospital-acquired infections have become so commonplace that patient horror stories have lost the power to shock. A construction worker tumbles off a ladder, undergoes arm surgery, and acquires a staph infection that leads to eight additional surgeries. A healthy woman -
Is the air in your IVF lab as clean as it can — and should — be? Laboratory air quality has a striking impact on implantation and live birth rates, mounting research confirms, and even the most pristine, state-of-the-art laboratories generate gases -
The presence of formaldehyde in everything from embalming fluid and hair straighteners to plywood adhesives and varnishes has prompted toxicologists and other researchers to scrutinise the chemical’s potential health impacts on a wide range of adults. One of the first -
The Defend 1050 is a medical-grade, portable device that uses a combination of plasma and filter technology to safely disinfect and purify indoor air, supplementing surface and hand hygiene for comprehensive infection control. Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 2018 – Novaerus, -
Meet the researchers looking into the microbial communities of indoor spaces. University of Oregon researchers Jessica Green and G Z ‘Charlie’ Brown call it the Pickle Box. This former walk-in storage unit for pickles, remodelled into an enclosed climate chamber, -
Health officials around the world agree: the superbug crisis has reached the “red alert” stage. Since the 1940s, antibiotics have dramatically reduced illness and death from infectious diseases; penicillin alone has saved about 200 million lives. But thanks to -
Back in 1999, infectious disease specialists were worried. Antibiotics, the most important medical development of the 20th century, were losing their power to combat dangerous bacteria, and few new drugs were in development. As a British medical report noted -
In the summer of 1976, reports of a mysterious and terrifying infection outbreak dominated American news: 34 people died suddenly and 220 were hospitalized after visiting Philadelphia. Patients developed headaches, chest pain, chills, and fevers up to 107 degrees. Autopsies -
It’s a terrible irony: around the globe, countless buildings that were designed for healing are actually making their occupants sick. Studies show that sick building syndrome (SBS), considered a “a major occupational hazard,” may be especially prevalent among employees in healthcare -
For any given case of sick building syndrome (SBS), the trigger can be hard to pinpoint. In fact, the mystery is part of the very definition of the syndrome. The U.S. Environmental Protection agency defines SBS as “situations in
