UV lights could reduce TB spread

The spread of tuberculosis (TB) could be reduced by using ultraviolet (UV) light, research has found.

A new study from institutions including Imperial College London, the University of Leeds and Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo, Lima, Peru, has claimed that TB spread in hospital wards and waiting rooms could drop 70 per cent if UV was used.

The report suggested that UV light could kill bacteria hanging in the air from patients' coughs, reducing the chances of other patients, staff and visitors becoming infected.

Dr Rod Escombe, the study's principal investigator from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine at Imperial College London, stated: "When people are crowded together in a hospital waiting room, it may take just one cough to infect several vulnerable patients.

"Our previous research showed that opening windows in a room is a simple way to reduce the risk of tuberculosis transmission, but this is climate-dependent – you can't open the windows in the intensive care ward of a Siberian hospital for example."

Just fewer than two million people die every year from TB currently, World Health Organisation figures show.

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