Fungus caused health problems

A SINTEF UNIMED study at Nye Røros Museum suggests that staff health problems are caused by a particular type of fungus that has been growing on the ruins of the old smelter shack.

The museum staff had complained of irritation of the throat and eyes, headaches and a feeling of listlessness at work. The museum has been built up around the ruins of the old smelter shack. In order to create the appropriate atmosphere it was decided to retain parts of the ruins as the interior of the lower floors of the museum, while the upstairs office section was a new construction. When modern ventilation systems bring humidity and heat to 100-year-old ruins, anything can happen. A number of species of fungus began to grow on details of the old interior, and it was soon possible to see that these were spreading rapidly throughout the museum building, even in the new offices.

In nine of the Museum's eleven staff, the researchers could demonstrate an identical reaction in the form of production of an antibody to just one of the fungi. However, the reaction could only be shown using fungi from the Museum, but not when the same standard laboratory test was done on commercial strains of the same type of fungus.

"This shows that using location-specific microbial material can be of decisive importance in determing the degree to which we can indicate relationships between microbes and health problems," says Catrine Ahlen, a SINTEF UNIMED scientist.

The study confirmed that the specific reactions among the staff were really a result of exposure at the work-place by carrying out identical tests on the spouses and live-in partners of the staff; none of them had reactions to the fungus.