What are Isolation Rooms?

This type of rooms can be called Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms because they are used to prevent an airborne pathogen from moving between rooms in a building like a hospital.

This containment room is usually occupied by a single patient, and in hospitals the HVAC system is responsible for maintaining a negative pressure relative to adjacent rooms or hallways.

How do Negative Pressure Rooms work?

The negative pressure creates a flow of air under the door but not through any other opening such as windows or power outlets, the flow direction is from high pressure areas to low pressure areas, thus no pathogen can escape the room.

At the inlet a 100% fresh air shall be sent in the room while the air that is being sucked out of the room is not sent into the HVAC circulation again, otherwise it would compromise the whole idea of an isolation room, instead it shall be moved through dedicated channels outside the building from the top side to mix with the huge surrounding air volume and be diluted.

In some cases, this is not acceptable because the pathogen is highly infectious so the air is moved through a filtering system before being released, the filters can use chemicals of radiation to eliminate any threat.

Where are Isolation Rooms used?

Any facility that needs to isolate airborne particles use this technology like hospitals and nuclear power plants.

In the recent outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) the demand for Negative Pressure Rooms reached a high level never seen in more than a decade.

How useful are Isolation Rooms?

The isolation room is part of a bigger picture and can’t be implemented successfully without other important procedures, for example the medical staff should use personal protective equipment (PPE) which in case of Coronavirus (COVID-19) it includes medical masks, goggles or a face shield, gloves and gowns, and for specific procedures, respirators (i.e., N95, FFP2 standard or equivalent) and aprons when entering an isolated room in order to prevent transmitting the disease out of the isolation room.

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