Improving natural ventilation in hospital waiting and consulting rooms to reduce nosocomial tuberculosis transmission risk in a low resource setting

摘要

BackgroundTB transmission in healthcare facilities is an important public health problem, especially in the often-overcrowded settings of HIV treatment scale-up. The problem is compounded by the emergence of drug resistant TB. Natural ventilation is a low-cost environmental control measure for TB infection control where climate permits that is suited to many different areas in healthcare facilities. There are no published data on the effect of simple structural modifications to existing hospital infrastructure to improve natural ventilation and reduce the risk of nosocomial TB transmission.The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of simple architectural modifications to existing hospital waiting and consulting rooms in a low resource setting on (a) improving natural ventilation and (b) reducing modelled TB transmission risk.