Quantification of the benefits of displacement ventilation in airborne disease control

A poor ventilation in buildings costs considerable amounts of money for hospitals and businesses.10 % of hospital acquired infections are directly due to an airborne route. The quantity and the quality of air supplied is important but also the way it is introduced into spaces. A change of the Wells Riley equation (establishing a link between the likelihood of infection, the infective agent production rate, the exposure time, the pulmonary and room ventilation rate) is proposed to take into account ventilation eefectiveness. Benefits of displacement ventilation are evaluated using this new equation.