A NEW Milton business which cures sick building syndrome has now turned its attention on the hospital superbug MRSA.

Julian Laws, who runs Air Ion Technologies with brother Keith, is celebrating obtaining trials with Southampton University, Southampton General Hospital and the Royal County Hospital at Winchester.

The trials follow a successful run by Leeds University at the intensive care wards at St James' University Hospital where there had been a superbug problem for some years.

First the hospital tried cleaning the air with ultra-violet light. "That had an effect, but that was very very minimal," said Mr Laws.

"Then they put our ionisers in and it stopped dead, and that was after six months. It's now been running for three years and there have been no infections of that nature at all."

Lead consultant at St James' ICU Dr Stephen Dean said: "The results have been fantastic, so much so that we asked the university to leave the ionisers with us."

Prof Bill Keevil from Southampton University is conducting research into MRSA and is now to set up ioniser laboratory trials. Southampton General Hospital has also been approached and, like the university, is waiting for Department of Health funding.

"We're getting nothing out of it, but the university and the hospital will get sufficient funds out of it to do what they need to do," said Mr Laws.

The Royal Hampshire Hospital is also to carry out simple trials in two wards to see if infection rates tumble.

Equipment produced by Mr Laws and his older brother is now made at Stonewood Electronics in Wareham.

Replicating what goes on naturally high up in the atmosphere, ionisers pump out negatively charged ions which repel the negative charges in particles of dust, smoke and other micro-organisms present in the air around us.

That causes the particles to drop, rendering them ineffective.

The Electric Fields and Discharges for Microbiology and Health Care Applications Seminar last week heard that one in 10 patients leave hospital with an infection they did not arrive with.

The cost to the NHS in England and Wales is £1 billion a year.

First published: May 27