Premium
Estimation of Tuberculosis Risk and Incidence under Upper Room Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation in a Waiting Room in a Hypothetical Scenario
Author(s) -
Ko Gwangpyo,
Burge Harriet A.,
Nardell Edward A.,
Thompson Kimberly M.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/0272-4332.214142
Subject(s) - medicine , transmission (telecommunications) , airborne transmission , hepa , toxicology , environmental health , veterinary medicine , covid-19 , biology , disease , filter (signal processing) , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , electrical engineering , computer vision , engineering
Environmental control measures (ventilation, high‐efficiency particulate air filtration, and upper room ultraviolet germicidal irradiation [UVGI]) are recommended to effectively control tuberculosis (TB) transmission from unsuspected TB patients in high‐risk settings, but the effectiveness of their use is not often clear. This study presents a simulation model for a hypothetical hospital waiting room, in which the number of susceptible immunocompetent people in the waiting room follows a Poisson distribution ( M = 5) in either low (annual number of TB patients = 5) or high TB risk settings (annual number of TB patients = 50), and used the model to evaluate the reduction of TB transmission risk by upper room UVGI. An exponential dose‐response model was used for TB transmission and a two‐zone model was used for evaluating the effect of upper room UVGI. Upper room UVGI reduced TB risk by 1.6‐fold at 3 μW/cm 2 UV irradiance in the upper room in the low TB risk setting and by 4.1‐fold at 15 μW/cm 2 UV irradiance in the upper room in the high TB risk setting. Use of upper room UVGI also reduced the mean annual new infection rate from 2.2 to 1.3 infections per year at 3 μW/cm 2 and to 0.6 infections per year at 15 μW/cm 2 in our hypothetical high‐risk settings. The effect of upper room UVGI was sensitive to both vertical air velocity (air mixing) and UV irradiance level. Results from partitioning variability indicate that most variability of TB transmission risk came from waiting time in our hypothetical hospital.