Dr James Milligan, Trustee of the Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation UK attended the leading UK conference for health-care professionals on Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in Birmingham as a guest of SmartAir (a Social enterprise that creates simple, no-nonsense air purifiers and provides free education to protect people's health from the effects of air pollution). 

The CRF-UK mission is to improve human health by promoting clean indoor air and supplying air purifiers to those in need. 

Meeting highlights included the establishment of many new connections with individuals also dedicated to improving health.  One of the most striking observations was the focus on surface hygiene and disinfectant use with a relative absence of discussion and focus on Air quality and cleaning. There appears to be great opportunity to expand focus on the latter. 

In response to Dr Milligan’s question, ‘should we be focusing more attention on the role of air quality and air cleaning in infection prevention’, Dr Dan Wootton (NIHR Advanced Fellow, University of Liverpool Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician at LUHFT) responded in the affirmative. He also highlighted the need to demonstrate effectiveness in preventing infection/transmission. This may be an opportunity for collaborating on research plans to plug such knowledge gaps.

We hope to secure an invitation back to next year’s event to speak on the evidence and need for improving indoor air quality as well as the available solutions.