Airport Smoking Zones: A Prospective Public Health Hazard

Abstract

As per the WHO, the infections might happen in crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces like airports through aerosolized or very small droplets. Doctors have expressed apprehensions that small, poorly ventilated designated smoking areas, as at airports, can accelerate the spread of infectious diseases, parti- cularly respiratory infections [1] . In fact, the particulate matter (PM) of air inside these designated smoking areas at airports is 15 times higher than that the recommended by WHO (10 μg/m 3 ) which further poses a higher risk of spread of infections among people smoking tobacco at these confined place [2] . Tobacco smoking can severely damage the respiratory organs and is one of the major contributing factors to respiratory infection [3] . Tobacco smoke contains more than 7000 com- pounds of which nicotine, a major component that is well known to develop tobacco addiction [4] , and other 200 (such as benz- pyrene, arsenic, and cadmium) compounds are identified as noxious and oncogenic as they may irritate the respiratory tract and reduce the erythrocyte’s oxygen transport capacity.