An Analysis on the Detection of Biological Contaminants Aboard Aircraft

Abstract

The spread of infectious disease via commercial airliner travel is a significant and realistic threat. To shed some light on the feasibility of detecting airborne pathogens, a sensor integration study has been conducted and computational investigations of contaminant transport in an aircraft cabin have been performed. Our study took into consideration sensor sensitivity as well as the time-to-answer, size, weight and the power of best available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices. We conducted computational fluid dynamics simulations to investigate three types of scenarios: (1) nominal breathing (up to 20 breaths per minute) and coughing (20 times per hour); (2) nominal breathing and sneezing (4 times per hour); and (3) nominal breathing only. Each scenario was implemented with one or seven infectious passengers expelling air and sneezes or coughs at the stated frequencies. Scenario 2 was implemented with two additional cases in which one infectious passenger expelled 20 and 50 sneezes per hour, respectively. All computations were based on 90 minutes of sampling using specifications from a COTS aerosol collector and biosensor. Only biosensors that could provide an answer in under 20 minutes without any manual preparation steps were included. The principal finding was that the steady-state bacteria concentrations in aircraft would be high enough to be detected in the case where seven infectious passengers are exhaling under scenarios 1 and 2 and where one infectious passenger is actively exhaling in scenario 2. Breathing alone failed to generate sufficient bacterial particles for detection, and none of the scenarios generated sufficient viral particles for detection to be feasible. These results suggest that more sensitive sensors than the COTS devices currently available and/or sampling of individual passengers would be needed for the detection of bacteria and viruses in aircraft.

Bacterial communities in commercial aircraft high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters assessed by PhyloChip analysis

“…In 2009, over 769 million airline passengers flew to and within the United States (US Department of Transportation 2010), and over 629 000 international flights landed in the United States (Hwang et al., 2011). The potential for these aircraft passengers to transport infectious diseases to non‐infected areas is a serious public health concern, as demonstrated by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus that originated in 2002 and rapidly spread into 25 countries on five continents, resulting in over 8000 cases and 774 fatalities (Peiris et al., 2003).…”

“…An aircraft is considered a high‐consequence environment in which false alarms lead to extraordinary costs for airlines, the traveling public, and governmental authorities. On the basis of 2009 flight statistics, a biosensor that could be deployed in commercial aircraft arriving into the United States would require a probability of false alarm of under 10 −6 , less than approximately one false alarm per year as calculated in the studies by Hwang et al. (2011).…”

International Air Travel to Ohio, USA, and the Impact on Malaria, Influenza, and Hepatitis A

“…Specifically short and latent diseases involved such as cholera with an incubation of 2 hours to 5 days and highly infectious drug resistant tuberculosis with decade long latencies have infected passengers [ 4 , 15 ]. Even with screening inflight transmission can occur due to varying incubation periods [ 16 ].…”

Detection of respiratory viruses on air filters from aircraft

“…2009; Wagner et al. 2009; Hwang et al. 2011) and whether viruses survive degradation in cabin air to remain viable or detectable (Weber and Stilianakis 2008; Tang 2009).…”

“…Two recent studies have determined that a variety of respiratory viruses are present in symptomatic air travellers (Luna et al 2007;Follin et al 2009). However, at present, it is not known which viruses are typically present in aircraft cabin air, whether viruses are often present in infectious amounts (Fabian et al 2008;Stelzer-Braid et al 2009;Wagner et al 2009;Hwang et al 2011) and whether viruses survive degradation in cabin air to remain viable or detectable (Weber and Stilianakis 2008;Tang 2009). To our knowledge, only two studies have detected viruses in aircraft cabin air to date (La Duc et al 2006;Yang et al 2011).…”