Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020:42:e2020027.
doi: 10.4178/epih.e2020027. Epub 2020 Apr 17.

Prevention of exposure to and spread of COVID-19 using air purifiers: challenges and concerns

Seunghon Ham  1
Affiliations

Prevention of exposure to and spread of COVID-19 using air purifiers: challenges and concerns

Seunghon Ham. Epidemiol Health. 2020.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now a pandemic. The Korean government has declared a red alert, which is the highest level of the national infectious disease alert system, and the World Health Organization has similarly declared its highest-level pandemic alert (phase 6). The spread of COVID-19 is an unprecedented worldwide public health problem that governments and individuals must work to overcome. Recently, an infection cluster arose in a call center in Seoul. To support call center companies, the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor has proposed covering the costs of installing partitions and air purifiers, providing hand sanitizers, and supplying masks to prevent droplet and aerosol infections. Air purifiers are expected to be installed on the floor with the exhaust outlets at a higher level, such as the level of the desks or breathing zones of workers. When a worker coughs or releases droplets near a colleague's respiratory system, the droplets may spread throughout the call center via air flow from air purifier. In this fashion, a single infected person can give rise to an infection cluster. Attempts to prevent infection must not lead to new infections, and the installation of air purifiers may cause new problems. Therefore, using air purifiers to control the spread of COVID-19 should be approached with caution.

Keywords: Air purifier; COVID-19; Call centers; Infection cluster; Occupational disease; Occupational health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare for this study.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Pilot experiment result of visualized air flow in terms of height of source (A) floor level, (B) 8 cm, (C) 16 cm, and (D) 24 cm from floor level.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ki M. Epidemiologic characteristics of early cases with 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) disease in Korea. Epidemiol Health. 2020;42:e2020007. - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. [cited 2020 Mar 19]. Available from: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.
    1. World Health Organization Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) 2020 Jan 30 [cited 2020 Mar 19]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-thesecond-m...
    1. Gan WH, Lim JW, Koh D. Preventing intra-hospital infection and transmission of COVID-19 in healthcare workers. Saf Health Work. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.shaw.2020.03.001. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms