Assessing the near patient infection risk in isolation rooms

Isolation rooms designed for protection against airborne infection have been designed based on a certain number of ACH and a differential pressure with adjacent spaces. In the validation process of an isolation room, gas tracer is generally used to simulate airborne infection. The experiments carried out focused on studying the risk of infection when the recipient is very close to the source (i.e. hospital staff working very close to an infectious patient) and studying how gas tracer tests compare to bacteriological tests. The results show good comparison between the behaviour of gas tracer and bacteria in the same room and the bed in different positions, thus validating the use of a tracer gas to represent the airborne behaviour of bioaerosols.