By Dr Gary Kantor
Most South Africans have never heard of Nipah virus. Today, it’s on the World Health Organization’s list of emerging infectious threats. Nipah outbreaks are rare but their consequences are severe: fatality rates in past outbreaks reached 40-75% or more. There is no proven antiviral treatment and no widely available vaccine.
WHO says Nipah is not airborne and is primarily spread through close contact with infected animals or people. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, similar assurances were given about SARS-CoV-2. We know how wrong – and costly – that misjudgement was.
Indoor air quality is a legal duty
The Physical Agents Regulations, 2024, issued under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, bring indoor air quality (IAQ) definitively into the realm of workplace health and safety. Regulation 12, in particular, requires employers and those who control workplaces to assess, control, monitor and document indoor air conditions.
IAQ is no longer just a comfort issue or a purely technical detail. The regulations define it as “the totality of attributes of indoor air at the workplace that affect a person’s health and well-being”. IAQ in this definition and through scientific evidence is linked to physical wellbeing, work performance and productivity.
Commercial property owners, managing agents and building managers, regardless of job title, are now responsible for IAQ.
Regulation requirements
The regulations follow standard occupational-health control logic:
- Eliminate risk where reasonably practicable
- Control risk where elimination is not possible
- Use ventilation, natural or mechanical, as a primary control
Where mechanical ventilation is used, systems must comply with recognised standards (including SANS 10400), must be tested by a competent person, and must be maintained and re-tested at defined intervals (not exceeding 24 months) .
Regulation 12(4) specifies what must be monitored, including:
- Thermal environment (temperature, air velocity, humidity)
- Airborne contaminants such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide
- Occupancy levels, relative to ventilation capacity
Carbon dioxide is a proxy for ventilation adequacy – a practical indicator of whether a space is being over-occupied or under-ventilated.
The regulations don’t require hospital-level air changes everywhere nor do they mandate expensive building retrofits. They do require risk assessment, evidence, monitoring and records.
Importance of the new regulations
From a Green Flag Association perspective, these regulations align with broader trends already affecting South African businesses and property owners and managers:
- Health risk is operational risk
Poor indoor air quality increases absenteeism, reduces cognitive performance and increases the risk of transmission of respiratory infections, ranging from seasonal influenza and tuberculosis to future emerging pathogens.
- Preparedness is better than reactiveness
Covid-19 showed that scientific consensus can be delayed. By the time uncertainty resolves, businesses, health systems, and economies are already paying the price.
- Data changes the conversation
Continuous or periodic IAQ monitoring moves the discussion from opinion to evidence. It is useful not only for regulators, but also for tenants, insurers, and boards.
- Liability is moving upstream
Regulation 20 makes non-compliance an offence, with fines or imprisonment possible for serious or persistent failures. Record-keeping requirements extend up to 40 years. This is real stuff.
Nipah or the next Covid
Nipah virus might not spread outside current sites (India). Covid might have been the once-in-a-century shock. But this is not about specific viruses. It’s about the fact that indoor environments drive health outcomes and there’s no reason to wait for the next pandemic.
The Physical Agents Regulations don’t ask building owners to predict the next Covid. They are required to manage known, measurable risks in spaces where people spend most of their waking lives.
Readings
Nipah virus
Nipah virus is a zoonotic Henipavirus transmitted from fruit bats or other animals to humans, with documented human-to-human spread.
IAQ regulations
The Physical Agents Regulations, 2024 were promulgated on 6 March 2025 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and establish indoor air quality as a physical agent subject to workplace risk management.
Dr Gareth Kantor is an anaesthesiologist with interests in health system safety, performance improvement and precision medicine, an honorary lecturer at the University of Cape Town and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He serves on the panel of experts for the Greenflag Association.