We have talked at great length about the many health benefits of having a UVC Air Sterilizer in your home or business. These range from improving sleep quality to eliminating various health hazards and everything in between. In these and our other previous blog posts, we would always mention that UVC air sterilizers are being used by the best hospitals in the world today, but we never really went into great detail as to why. In today’s global pandemic, the main benefit of UVC air sterilizers in hospitals, as well as your homes and businesses, is definitely the ability to inactivate the Sars-Cov-2 virus that causes COVID-19. But in the medical industry, there is more to UVC air sterilizers than simply being the best COVID-19 shield.
History of UV Air Disinfection
Contrary to popular belief, the use of ultraviolet light to disinfect the air of critical locations like hospitals and laboratories is not a recent advancement in medical technology. A method called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) has been used, but underutilized, in the past decades, according to a paper published in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. The paper, titled The History of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation for Air Disinfection describes how UVGI was used in decades past, as a way to disinfect the air and stop the spread of certain infectious diseases like pandemic influenza, tuberculosis, SARS, and even bioterror threats inside hospital settings.
These UVGI systems used low-pressure mercury (Hg) discharge lamps which emit UV-C 100-280nm radiation, normally in the range of 254nm. This inactivates or kills microbes on a DNA level, rendering the microbe incapable of replicating. UVGI was also used to disinfect water and surfaces, and currently, the paper states that water disinfection is the most advanced and accepted germicidal application of the technology.
There are two ways UVGI is used: upper-room UVGI, and in-duct UVGI. Upper-room UVGI is used in occupied rooms where the occupants are not wearing protective clothing. These wall-mounted and ceiling-suspended systems have shielded UVGI fixtures to do the sterilization above everyone, greatly reducing the exposure of UVC light to occupants of the room. In-duct UVGI, as the name implies, sterilizes the air before it is recirculated through the ducts of a hospital area. It does this by irradiating entire sections of a duct at very high intensities, but because the duct is not accessible or exposed to the room’s occupants, there is very minimal to zero-risk of radiation exposure.
While the technology would fluctuate in use in the past, these days the technology has advanced enough that modern iterations of the UVGI system are now being used in hospitals, and it is for a very specific purpose.
The Health Risks Of Being In A Hospital
While a hospital is certainly a haven for health and recovery for the sick and the unwell, it is also, unfortunately, a high-risk area for both patients and medical professionals. This is because hospitals cause healthcare-associated infections or HAI, and it is something that has caused a lot of deaths in many countries.
According to a paper titled Estimating Health Care-Associated Infections and Deaths in U.S. Hospitals, 2002, the estimated number of healthcare-associated infections in US hospitals alone was 1.7 million. It states that HAIs in hospitals are a cause of morbidity and mortality in the US. In Canada, HAIs are the 4th leading cause of death in healthcare facilities. This is something that is quite surprising considering that many people go to hospitals to become well, but risk contracting something the moment they step in the hospital doors.
The Center for Disease Control has released some guidelines to help prevent HAIs from becoming higher and higher, but while these do help, every layer of protection counts.
To combat the threat of HAIs, modern hospitals have now employed UVC sterilization technology, which not only helps reduce the chances of HAIs, but can also help fight the transmission of deadly superbugs.
UVC, The First And Best Line Of Defense
UVC systems, both direct light disinfection and air sterilization, are now being pushed in modern hospitals again to combat the most deadly bugs and diseases medical professionals and patients now face. A recent study held by Duke Health researchers states that superbugs like MRSA that linger in patient rooms and cause new infections can be killed by UVC lamps, cutting down the transmission of four deadly diseases by 30%.
Another study published recently called Use of ultraviolet-C in environmental sterilization in hospitals: A systematic review on efficacy and safety showed that using UVC air sterilizers and sterilizing lamps, combined with other manual cleaning methods reduced the risks of HAIs in hospital settings. The paper concluded that UVC air sterilizers are very useful in high-traffic places, allowing for the sterilization of the air with less time and using less manpower than other methods.
Conclusion
UVC air sterilization technology has been used for decades in the best hospitals, and now the tech has advanced enough that you too can have the same protection that can kill the deadliest of diseases. Contact us for a tech demo of our products, or to answer any more questions you may have!