World-first clinical trial shows mask-wearing significantly boosts flu protection

In a world-first clinical trial showing effectiveness of masks, researchers found adult wearers in the home were four times more likely than non-wearers to be protected against respiratory viruses, if they wore the mask.

Commissioned and funded by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing in response to an urgent policy need, the study is the first randomised controlled clinical trial of masks to be conducted internationally. Researchers at UNSW, Sydney's Westmead Hospital, Imperial College (London) and the National Centre for Immunisation Research studied more than 280 adults in 143 families in Sydney during the winter seasons of 2006 and 2007. The adults were randomly allocated masks when exposed to a sick child in the household.
The findings - published this week in Emerging Infectious Diseases, the journal of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention - have global implications and are particularly relevant to efforts to combat the spread of flu pandemics and other emerging respiratory diseases such as SARS.
Professor MacIntyre and her team, along with the Beijing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are now running a large trial of masks in close to 2,000 health care workers in more than 20 hospitals in China. It is believed that the results from this trial could have wide implications for not only pandemic influenza, but a range of communicable diseases spread within hospitals.

Content Updated (Thursday, 21 January 2009)