The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus how poor indoor air quality can amplify the effects of airborne viruses. Rather than promoting health and wellbeing, our built environment often worsens air quality through inadequate ventilation, air recirculation, material specification and the additional pollution load from mechanical heating and cooling. In this think-piece, we introduce a selection of interrelated building design strategies to improve indoor air quality and reduce the spread and impact of airborne disease. We also highlight the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, targeted policy change and leadership on air quality to build resilience against future airborne viral outbreaks.
Most malaria infections in sub-Saharan Africa are acquired indoors, thus finding effective ways of preventing mosquito house entry should reduce transmission. Since most malaria mosquitoes fly less than 1 m from the ground, we tested whether raising buildings off the ground would prevent the entry of
Anopheles gambiae
, the principal African malaria vector, in rural Gambia. Nightly collections of mosquitoes were made using light traps from four inhabited experimental huts, each of which could be moved up or down. Mosquito house entry declined with increasing height, with a hut at 3 m reducing
An. gambiae
house entry by 84% when compared with huts on the ground. A propensity for malaria vectors to fly close to the ground and reduced levels of carbon dioxide, a major mosquito attractant, in elevated huts, may explain our findings. Raised buildings may help reduce malaria transmission in Africa.
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