"LONDON,
April 18 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization and around 500
experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to
spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the
COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
"The
Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the
topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step towards working out how
to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases
like measles and for future pandemic threats.
"The
document concludes that the descriptor "through the air" can be used
for infectious diseases where the main type of transmission involves the
pathogen travelling through the air or being suspended in the air, in
line with other terms such as "waterborne" diseases, which are
understood across disciplines and by the public.
"Almost 500 experts contributed to the definition, including physicists, public health professionals and engineers, many of whom disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past."
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