Can you have a home free of swine flu?

A real estate developer claims to have a technology that can keep airborne viruses at bay. The author examines the possibility

At a time when a study by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that the H1N1 virus that causes swine flu might have become more virulent (the Indian government has rejected this), a Noida-based real estate developer has claimed that it is building "India's first swine flu-free homes".

In its advertisements and Facebook posts, KV Developers, which is coming up with a residential housing project in Greater Noida (West), announces: "Swine Flu is a deadly infection whose (sic) outbreak has already claimed the life of around a thousand people in India. Choose to protect yourself and your loved ones by booking a house at India's First Swine Flu Free Homes."

How the builder intends to achieve this feat when the scientific community itself is struggling against the virus is a "trade secret" the company is not willing to reveal. "This is not a marketing gimmick; we have the technology that makes buildings swine flu-free," says the salesperson. "If you want to know what it is, you will have to visit our site."

At the project site, surrounded by a maze of buildings in various stages of construction, KV Developers' Chief Marketing Officer Anil Kohli rattles out all that this mysterious technology can achieve. "It works against airborne germs and kills them as soon as they enter the building," he says. "So, we are saying that within their apartment, people will be protected from swine flu and other members of the family will not contract the disease even if one member picks the infection from outside." He goes on to add that the "technology" works against other airborne diseases too but they are focusing on swine flu because that's what people are worried about currently. He too refuses to name the technology but says that one of the ways of applying it is in the form of a coating on the wall.

Ashwani Bhalla, senior architect at C P Kukreja Associates, the firm that has designed the project, however, admits, "As the architect, I am not aware of this." These homes, he adds, have good ventilation and plenty of sunlight. "So in that sense they are good for your health. But that's about it. Maybe that's why they have claimed these to be swine-flu free homes," he says.

While a swine flu-free home might be a questionable claim, doctors say there are certain measures one can adopt in the house to reduce the risk of infection, though it might not be possible to eliminate the virus altogether. "Air entry is the only thing you can control," says R K Singal, head of the department of internal medicine at BLK Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi. "Air curtains, the kind that are used in operation theatres, can help filter germs." But, he adds, you have to remember that even developed countries, which have cleaner air than ours, aren't swine flue-free.

Atul Gogia, consultant with the internal medicine department at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi, advises against the concept of central air-conditioning. "Many upscale housing complexes promote the concept of centrally-conditioned homes. But central air-conditioning circulates germs throughout the house and can cause the infection to spread," cautions Gogia. "This is the reason hospitals have isolation rooms, because the air-conditioning unit is the same for the entire floor or maybe even for the entire hospital."

Other things that can help are air purifiers. "These help filter microbes from the air and makes the air closest to clean," says Gogia. He also makes a case for the laminar airflow system, "which pushes the air in one direction". This is the system of circulating filtered air in parallel-flowing planes. This reduces the risk of airborne contamination.

Within the house, there is no better precaution than washing your hands repeatedly, adds J M S Kalra, director of the internal medicine department at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi. "Ordinary soaps also work but there is nothing like alcohol-based sanitisers. These are very effective," says Kalra. And in case a member of the family has swine flu, follow the drill, he says: keep the patient in isolation, boil the clothes and towels he uses and ensure that he coughs and sneezes into a tissue and not into the air.

Good hygiene, proper ventilation, sunlight and monitoring of the air-conditioning are some easy methods to adopt at home - far easier than buying a home made "swine flu-free" with an undisclosed technology.