SYDNEY, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Bacteria from sneezes can travel up to 4 metres and linger in the air for almost an hour according to research published by an Australian scientist on Tuesday, who said Australians need to emulate Chinese people when it comes to being savvy about spreading sickness.
The research discovery "breaks the current medical dogma," according to Professor Lidia Morawska of the Queensland University of Technology, who started her research as a result of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, which killed around 800 people.
Concerned by the deadly epidemic, Morawska started investigating the science of sneezing and learned more about how sickness is spread through the air, and what she found completely overturned the dominant discourse that bacteria can only spread from an arm's length or less distance.
"We've shown that bacteria can travel very far and stay airborne for up to 45 minutes, so in light of this, we need to completely change how we view infections," Morawska told Xinhua on Tuesday.
"Whether you are on the train, or in the office, if someone who is sick has been in that space, that bacteria can persist for quite some time."
As part of the research, Morawska and her team used a four-meter long tunnel to monitor how far the bacteria from a single sneeze or cough could travel, and found that bacteria could actually journey beyond the length of the tunnel, an alarming finding which led Morawska to the conclusion that Australians have a lot to learn from Chinese people, when it comes to staying safe from sickness.
"If you are sick, you really should wear a mask to prevent your illness from spreading. In Australia, this is quite uncommon, but in a lot of Asian countries, especially China, it is very common, and it appears to be a very good way of stopping illness from spreading," Morawska said.
Misconceptions about how sickness spreads are a "big problem", according to the learned professor, who argued everyone has a role to play in "protecting themselves and protecting others."
"We firstly need to consider how to design buildings in the future to make the ventilation systems operate in such a way that air from one infected person doesn't spread to the whole office," she said.
"The biggest problems is the whole health community still abides by the old medical dogma, which is not correct, so people, especially children, need to be educated on how to avoid spreading sickness."
Alhough Australia was fortunate enough to avoid the SARS outbreak in 2003, Morawska warned against complacency despite it being 14 years later, and said the incident should still be treated as a "turning point" and an important lesson in global health strategies.
The professor will continue her research into how infections are spread, and her next study will focus on the effectiveness of various preventative measures against spreading disease.
