The South African legislative environment, in critical need of scientific evidence based alignment for airborne control

Abstract

Review of evidence based research indicates that there are best practice principles that can be applied to the design of the built environment with regard to the reduction of the risk of cross infection from airborne diseases in health facilities. However, analysis of South African building legislation and regulations specific to airborne control and the built environment has identified that there are a number of legislated regulations that are contrary to these best practice design principles. A data matrix was compiled after comparing research of peer reviewed articles, Government gazettes, International and South African health guidelines and South African National Standards for buildings against the current South African legislation and regulations specific to airborne control and the built environment. The aim to identify the building legislation that does not satisfy known scientific peer review published data and evidence base research on airborne contamination and to stimulate a process of amendment to the regulations.