The medical profession now has a specialist term for what our ancestors just called "plain fresh air".
That medical term is: "open air factor" or OAF.
And while your grandmother might have told you to just get out and play, the fancier medical term is "open-air therapy".
One of the country's top experts in infectious diseases is calling for "urgent" research into "the beneficial qualities of OAF".
Professor Peter Collignon of the Australian National University also wants a rethink on how hospitals are designed. More account needs to be taken of keeping fresh air flowing through wards rather than closing them off.
Professor Collignon said of fresh air that "this overlooked, pathogen-fighting agent" is a "forgotten but formidable protective agent that's been documented in medical journals for close to two centuries could be key to defending against airborne bacteria and viruses, including COVID-19".
He said that outdoor air had properties that can kill airborne viruses. "This is why being outdoors helps protect people from contracting COVID-19," he said.
The infectious diseases physician said that OAF (fresh air) continued to be neglected as a way of controlling infections.
"This is despite documented evidence of 'open-air therapy' being used to treat tuberculosis patients in sanatoria during the first decade of the 20th century, and to treat soldiers' infected wounds during the First World War.
"We know the best form of protection against COVID-19 is to get vaccinated and stay up-to-date with boosters," Professor Collignon, a co-author of a paper published in the learned medical journal, Cureus, said.
"But since the end of the 19th century through to the middle of the 20th century, there was a widely held belief that outdoor air had disinfecting and therapeutic properties.
"During the First World War a British surgeon found that putting patients outside and then leaving their infected wounds open to fresh air greatly improved recovery. In two or three days the wounds lost their odour and began to look clean again."
He's calling on medical authorities to commission research into how open air might help prevent the spread of disease.
"This could potentially include rediscovering open-air wards, such as during the First World War, to help patients and staff in hospitals, or finding new ways to improve indoor ventilation techniques with fresh air from outside."
"The OAF will likely also help in reducing the transmission of many infections in schools, homes, offices and larger buildings.
"Several decades ago, hospitals and other building types were designed to prevent infections from spreading. Today they are not. For example, windows are smaller, ceilings are lower, cross ventilation can be difficult if not impossible, and balconies and verandas are not as common as they once were.
"Fresh air is no longer considered to be germicidal or therapeutic for hospital patients or, for that matter, anyone else. It is perhaps time to examine how we used to design and ventilate buildings for health. If this is ignored, just as the OAF continues to be, the costs to society could be large."
In the paper, Professor Collignon lays out a series of recommendations for research:
- A program of testing both established and novel pathogens (microbes causing disease) to determine the effects of the OAF on them;
- Experiments to determine whether, and for how long, the OAF can be preserved indoors; and
- A review of building design with regard to improved infection control and patient recovery, with a focus on increased exposure and access to outside air and to the OAF.
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