Fever hospitals must return to protect public, scientists say

‘Putting people carrying the virus in the same building as those who are not is a mistake’

DEDICATED fever hospitals should be brought back to stop dangerous infections like coronavirus spreading within healthcare settings and the community, experts have said.

Britain used to have more than 600 small fever and isolation hospitals that were largely mothballed unless there was an epidemic of cholera, typhoid, smallpox or tuberculosis.

But with the eradication of many diseases through vaccines, and the discovery of antibiotics, they were eventually deemed unnecessary and sold or merged with regular hospitals.

Scientists now say that bringing back fever hospitals is essential in an era where new diseases are emerging for which we have no treatments.

Dr Richard Hobday said: “When dealing with an unknown respiratory virus the Department of Health should have assumed it was airborne.

“Then they should have set up separate fever hospitals for those infected and kept them away from those who are not. Whether it is or it isn’t airborne, putting people carrying the virus in the same buildings as those who are not is a mistake.”

Fever hospitals were often set away from built-up areas and had walls surrounding them to prevent airborne infections spreading.

The Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University called for an “emergency building programme of infectious disease hospitals” in a recent blog post.

Researchers said the expense would be nothing compared to the “madness” of housing infectious and non-infectious patients in the same facilities.