COVID19 isolation room machine based on the 2003SARS Machine installed in Prince of Wales Hospital

Abstract

From statistics, the highest COVID19 fatality rate in Hong Kong is the cluster of elderly staying in nursing homes. This research and development focus on the improvement of their existing isolation rooms by replacing the window fans by the newly designed negative pressure isolation room machine. Since the highest fatality cluster is in the group of people in care homes, we design a negative pressure isolation room machine for the use in the isolation rooms which do not have negative pressure function. To reduce the spread of the new coronavirus and airborne pathogens (such as tuberculosis, measles, and chickenpox), symptomatic patients should be isolated as soon as possible. Although there are isolation rooms in nursing homes or rehabilitation homes, they have no negative pressure function and can only provide limited isolation to reduce the risk of transmission. Existing negative pressure isolation wards use air filters to isolate viruses in the air, but the air filters will hinder air circulation and require a lot of electricity to generate negative pressure, and the viruses will be left on the air filters. When staff replace the air filter, there is a risk of infection. A novel filterless method was proposed during 2003 SARS. The effectiveness and advantages of using aqueous ozone to disinfect air is reviewed. These concepts are used to construct a prototype negative pressure room device, call COVID Machine, to ensure the exhaust air is not contaminated. A preliminary test is carried out on the prototype to show that it can effectively reduce bacteria in the exhaust air.