February 6, 2012
IHI Shibaura Machinery Corporation

Preventing the spread of disease

IHI has installed 9 ozone disinfection boxes at animal quarantine stations at 8 Japanese airports, including Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda and Central Japan International Airport. This is the first time for Japanese animal quarantine stations to install ozone disinfection systems to disinfect clothes and other personal belongings that could be contaminated with viruses and bacteria.

On Apr 4th, 2011, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries revised the Act on Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control. This has called for the earlier detection and prevention of foot-and-mouth disease and new types of influenza, including highly-pathogenic bird flu, at border control.

In response, Japanese airport animal quarantine stations have decided to introduce IHI ozone disinfection boxes to disinfect clothes and other personal belongings as required.

This disinfection system has been jointly-developed by IHI and IHI Shibaura and is designed to disinfect garments and linens using ozone technology for speed, safety and reliability. Over 50 units have already been installed in hospitals, pharmaceutical firms and university laboratories.

The increasing awareness of health and safety issues has stimulated greater demand for the environmental benefits of ozone, because unlike ethylene oxide gas and formalin gas, ozone does not leave any harmful toxic residuals that would need to be removed after the disinfection cycle.