Researchers from the University of Houston in the United States have created a hot air filter that can instantly eliminate the emerging corona virus, by hunting and killing it like flies. This development comes after the World Health Organization recognized that the virus can spread through tiny droplets airborne.

The researchers claimed that they designed a special air filter that can detain and destroy the SARS Cove 2 virus that causes Covid-19 disease, according to the FoxNoys website.

The Houston Chronicle reported that Dr. Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Conductivity at the University of Houston, is responsible for the project.

The researchers produced a design of heated nickel foam, and they detailed this in a research paper published in Materials Today Physics.

Researchers conducted tests at the Galveston National Laboratory, and found that 99.8% of the corona viruses were killed immediately after passing through the filter once.

The process requires heating the foam up to 200 ° C.

Propagation through the air

The World Health Organization acknowledged in Geneva last week that the corona virus could spread through tiny airborne droplets, in a move that highlighted the opinions of more than 200 aerosol experts publicly complaining that the United Nations organization had not warned people of this danger .

However, the organization still insists that there must be more conclusive evidence that the Corona virus can be transmitted through the air, which would put the virus on an equal footing with measles and tuberculosis, and would require tougher measures to contain its spread.

"The slow pace of WHO action on this issue unfortunately slows the pace of controlling this epidemic," said Jose Jimenez, a chemist at the University of Colorado who co-signed a public message urging the organization to change its guidelines.

Jiménez and other experts on the transmission of infection by aerosols said that WHO adheres strongly to the idea that germs are spread mainly through contact with an infected person or something contaminated. This idea is one of the pillars of modern medicine, and it explicitly rejects the theory of the transmission of diseases through the rotten air that originated in the Middle Ages and assumes that the smelly, foul-smelling fumes that make up a substance such as cholera and plague.

"This is part of the culture of medicine in the early twentieth century. Acceptance that something airborne requires a high level of proof," said Dr. Donald Milton, an Air particle transport expert at the University of Maryland and one of the lead authors of the thesis.

The signatories to the message said that this evidence could include studies of laboratory animals infected with the virus due to exposure to the virus in the air, or studies showing viable virus particles in air samples, a level of evidence not required for other transmission patterns such as contact with contaminated surfaces.

With regard to the World Health Organization, this guide is necessary because it advises countries of various incomes and resources to take tougher measures in the face of the pandemic that has killed more than 550,000 people worldwide with more than 12 million confirmed infections.

The latest WHO guidance document, released on Thursday, called for more research on the transmission of the virus through air, which it said was "not proven".

Viral particles

The University of Calgary's infectious disease expert, Dr. John Conley, who is part of the WHO expert group advising on guidance on corona virus, said studies have yet to show viable viral particles floating in the air. "I want to see evidence of this gentle mist," he said.

Conley and others asserted that if the virus were really transmitted through the air like measles, the number of infections would have been much greater.

WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris rejected the criticism that the organization was opposed to the idea of ​​the virus being transmitted by aerosols, saying that the organization had recognized the possibility of it being transmitted by air during medical procedures early in the pandemic.

And Harris said, "It is quite possible" that aerosols may be a factor in some widespread events such as those in which an infected person transports many to crowded places. Many of these events have occurred in places such as nightclubs where people are crowded without likely being careful about protecting themselves or others from infection.

"Most of the outbreaks occurred in poorly ventilated, closed spaces and during a congestion in which it is difficult to take into account social spacing," said Harris.

She added that for this reason, the organization called for urgent studies to find out "what really happened in these gatherings and what are the main factors."