Drying your washing indoors 'can pose serious health risk': Damp clothes help deadly spores breed, warn Doctors

Are you drying your under wear or little clothing indoor. You should read this:

Doctors warned that  clothes drying indoor or warm radiators can raise moisture levels in the home by up to 30 per cent, creating ideal breeding conditions for mould spores can pose a serious health risk to people with weakened immune systems or severe asthma.

 

Experts says in leds to breed of Aspergillus fumigatus spores, which can cause lung infections.

 

Aspergillosis is the name of a group of conditions caused by a fungal mould called aspergillus. It usually affects the respiratory system (windpipe, sinuses and lungs), but it can spread to anywhere in the body. Depending on a number of factors, the symptoms of aspergillosis can vary in severity from mild wheezing tocoughing up blood. Someone with a weakened immune system is at greater risk of being more severely affected.

 

Professor David Denning and his team at the National Aspergillosis Centre in Manchester have issued the warning after treating a growing number of patients who have inhaled Aspergillus fungal spores.

 

Professor Denning said: 'One load of wet washing contains almost two litres of water, which is released into the room. Most of us are either immune to the fungus which grows in these humid conditions, or have a sufficiently healthy system to fight the infection.

 

But in asthma sufferers it can produce coughing and wheeziness, and in people with weak or damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, Aids patients and people who have an auto immune disease, the fungus can cause pulmonary aspergillosis – a condition which can cause irreparable, and sometime fatal, damage to the lungs and sinuses. 

 

My advice would be when in doubt dry wet washing outside, in a tumble dryer or in a well-ventilated indoor space away from bedrooms and living areas to be safe rather than sorry.'

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