Sos Roofline Systems

You can’t sneeze these days without some clever so-and-so in the vicinity making a joke about having swine flu, with a smirk on his/her face. No doubt thats something to be relieved about – if we’re making jokes it means things aren’t serious. So far the virus has been relatively well contained so far, with worldwide cases under a thousand to date and deaths a rarity. 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). I guess my point is that if governments are willing to take their public education that far it means they too see it as a real threat, worth potentially upsetting us.

Well, tissues aside, a UK company that specialises in air condioners has come up with a novel and potentially important way of preventing swine flu. According to JS Humidifiers’ blog, an air purifier 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 minute particles that make up the swine flu virus are just like normal flu particles, at approximately 100 nanometers in size – an air purifier would be able to trap and stop these particles in their tracks. Even more effective are those air purifiers fitted with a UV lamp, which fire ultra violet light at the air particles that pass through them, killing airborne viruses in the process.

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! Maybe this is something that governments in the UK and around the world could think about in their contingency planning. And maybe this summer when you are considering buying a portable aircon for the home or workplace, you might think about cleansing the air as well as cooling it.