Experimental study on activities of the virus in low humidity indoor environments

Ikeda K., Ibamoto T., Komatsu T., Saito M., Nakayama M., Saito K., Yamadera S., Kinomoto M., Tsubota Y.
health, humidity
Year:
2003
Bibliographic info:
Healthy Buildings 2003 - Proceedings 7th International Conference (7th-11th December 2003) - National University of Singapore - Vol. 1., pp 637-642, 3 Fig., 3 Tab., 8 Ref.

Japanese Building Maintenance Law defines that indoor humidity shall be maintained not lower than40%. But it is sometime very difficult to comply with the law. Indoor air humidifies in office buildingsmostly below 40% especially in wintertime. A request to deregulate the provision arises from HVACindustries. But a question concerning risk to deregulate the lower limit of humidity is arising.According to researches in 1960s, activity levels of influenza virus become higher when indoorrelative humidity becomes lower than 40%. This fact is one of major basis of the provision but is rather ld information. New in vitro study on this subject is conducted to update information on the effects of relative humidity on influenza virus. The results showed that higher the humidity became, the lower the virus infectivity became.

< Back to publications