As early as September 2020, Jeremy McDonald, a professional engineer with New York-based Guth Deconzo Consulting Engineers, writing in Climate Control Middle East magazine, spoke of the need for a building tracing programme – essentially, an audit of the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) performance of buildings. This was at the height of the outbreak of the pandemic, when contact tracing was an accepted strategy to control the spread of the disease, driven by airborne droplets.

Surendar Balakrishnan

McDonald suggested that in addition to contact tracing, authorities ought to undertake building tracing, with a view to identifying “specific buildings that suffer from low IAQ”. He saw this identification and certification process as the first step in taking remedial action involving HVAC-related interventions, including improving the quality of air circulation.

McDonald said that often, HVAC systems themselves are creating conditions for the spread of the disease in dense urban spaces, including low air circulation – often the result of designing buildings in a tight manner – which causes the build-up of the pathogen. Equally worrying, he said, is the fact that many buildings suffer from the absence of regular maintenance schedules or are groaning under the weight of aged HVAC equipment, as a result of which they are specifically struggling to achieve the recommended air changes.

All things considered, a building tracing and certification programme, based on evaluating and reviewing individual buildings, he argued, would not only help combat COVID-19 but also minimise the possibility of loss of human lives and economic destruction by future such bioagent-driven outbreaks. The cover story of this issue focuses on this profoundly important topic of undertaking a building certification in the Middle East region. McDonald himself is one of the sources, and he joins others who are earnest and passionate about promoting better health through timely and robust HVAC interventions across multiple building types.

The topic is such that it is quite impossible to discuss all aspects at one go, so we urge and encourage you to share your feedback. It is essential to sustain the momentum and the increased awareness towards better IAQ.