Airborne infections are a major cause of post-operative infections, especially in low-income countries where advanced ventilation and air purification equipment is often lacking. In high-income countries, infection rates are relatively low, largely due to well-developed ventilation solutions. On the downside, the technology is expensive, energy intensive and space consuming.
In low-income countries, on the other hand, less advanced technologies are used. They tend to use very simple solutions or no specialised ventilation technology at all. Infection rates are also clearly elevated in surgical procedures and most operating theatres are mechanically unventilated and without air purification.
Innovative alternative technology
For the past two years, CIT Renergy at Chalmers Industriteknik, together with the Department of Building Services Engineering at Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers, has been running a Formas-funded project to explore and test an innovative alternative technology.
“The technology is based on air cleaners that show a significant reduction in airborne bacteria and are easy to install and have high reliability, low power consumption, low noise level and low need for service,” says Lars Ekberg, Professor of Indoor Climate Technology at the Division of Building Services Engineering.
The new technology has now been tested under real-life conditions at full scale in two hospitals in Bukavu, in eastern DR Congo. One is a small hospital in the center of the city, the other is the Panzi Hospital, built and run by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Denis Mukwege, known for his work helping women affected by violence.
Promising results
“In November 2024, I spent a month on site in Bukavu, together with two project staff, where we measured airborne particles and bacteria during ongoing surgery of various kinds,” says Daniel Olsson, expert on indoor environment in energy-efficient buildings, at CIT Renergy, Chalmers Industriteknik.
The results are very promising and show that the innovative technology can reduce the levels of potentially infection-causing particles to a fraction. The results also indicate that it is possible to achieve almost as good air quality in simple operating theatres in low-income countries as in advanced Swedish healthcare environments.
More information
Those who travelled to Congo in November 2024 were Daniel Olsson, project manager at CIT Renergy, Jörgen Rutegård, surgeon, and Pedro Gandra, healthcare facilities specialist. The year before, 2023, Lars Ekberg, Building Services Engineering, Chalmers, also participated in a reconnaissance trip to the same hospital.
Related: cleansurgeair.se/