Fungal contamination of the respiratory tract and associated respiratory impairment among sawmill workers in India

Adhikari, Asit; Sahu, Subhashis; Bandyopadhyay, A. K.; Blanc, Paul D.; Moitra, Subhabrata

doi:10.1183/23120541.00023-2015

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…Airborne fungal particles are recognized as potential health hazards in environments with heavy fungal contamination ( Institute of Medicine, 2004 ). A number of studies from sawmills have revealed associations between fungal exposure and respiratory impairments such as hypersensitivity pneumonitis, organic dust syndrome (ODTS), and occupational asthma ( Belin, 1987 ; Dahlqvist et al, 1992 ; Eduard et al, 1992 ; Halpin et al, 1994 ; Rask‐Andersen et al, 1994 ; Mandryk et al, 2000 ; Adhikari et al, 2015 ). Fungal spores and related biomarkers are commonly measured during fungal exposure assessment whether in indoor or occupational settings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal Fragments and Fungal Aerosol Composition in Sawmills

Afanou

Eduard

Johnsen

et al. 2018

Annals of Work Exposures and Health

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Assessment of exposure to fungi has commonly been limited to fungal spore measurements that have shown associations between fungi and development or exacerbation of different airway diseases. Because large numbers of submicronic fragments can be aerosolized from fungal cultures under laboratory conditions, it has been suggested that fungal exposure is more complex and higher than that commonly revealed by spore measurements. However, the assessment of fungal fragments in complex environmental matrix remain limited due to methodological challenges. With a recently developed immunolabeling method for field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), we could assess the complex composition of fungal aerosols present in personal thoracic samples collected from two Norwegian sawmills. We found that large fungal fragments (length >1 µm) dominated the fungal aerosols indicating that the traditional monitoring approach of spores severely underestimate fungal exposure. The composition of fungal aerosols comprised in average 9% submicronic fragments, 62% large fragments, and 29% spores. The average concentrations of large and submicronic fragments (0.2–1 µm) were 3 × 105 and 0.6 × 105 particles m−3, respectively, and correlated weakly with spores (1.4 × 105 particles m−3). The levels of fragments were 2.6 times higher than the average spore concentration that was close to the proposed hazardous level of 105 spores per m3. The season influenced significantly the fungal aerosol concentrations but not the composition. Furthermore, the ratio of spores in the heterogeneous fungal aerosol composition was significantly higher in saw departments as compared to sorting of green timber departments where the fungal fragments were most prevalent. Being the dominating particles of fungal aerosols in sawmills, fungal fragments should be included in exposure-response studies to elucidate their importance for health impairments. Likewise, the use of fungal aerosol composition in such studies should be considered.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal Fragments and Fungal Aerosol Composition in Sawmills

Afanou

Eduard

Johnsen

et al. 2018

Annals of Work Exposures and Health

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“…Given the significant burning of wood outside the home, health programmes designed to improve air quality must expand their current focus on rural women living BPL to include the burning of scrap wood from sawmills and the workplace dust and pollutants that men, women and children breathe while living and/or working at a brick kiln, an indoor sawmill or other sites where firewood is burned. Indoor and ambient air quality and lack of use of personal protective equipment are closely linked to various respiratory and skin ailments among workers in sawmills and kilns (Adhikari et al, 2015;Sain & Meena, 2017). And yet, cookstove improvement projects tend to assume that cookstoves will not only improve women's health but liberate them to engage in wage-earning work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gender of Fuelwood: Headloads and Truckloads in India

Khandelwal

Hill

Beck

et al. 2022

Journal of South Asian Development

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Cookstove improvement projects in India have emerged from the longstanding concerns about the nexus of cooking, fuelwood, gender and the environment. Such work, both academic and interventionist, focuses on rural women hauling headloads of firewood from the forests to their kitchens, where they burn it for daily cooking in a mud cookstove [ chulha]. We argue that this focus on village women’s cooking is too narrow if we are to understand and address problems caused by burning fuelwood in India, as cookstove campaigns attend to villages and not cities, domestic cooking and not commercial uses, and women and not men. Ethnographic research in Rajasthan and Odisha shows why we must expand our understanding of fuelwood use beyond villages, rural kitchens and women, and how cookstove interventions, often expressed as concern for women, require gender analysis.

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“…Being respirable by size (2-10 µm), fungal spores can easily enter the human respiratory tract [67]. Fungus-induced allergic respiratory symptoms can occur from the indoor, occupational environment or both [3,9]. Throughout the world, 20-30% of the allergic problems are attributable to fungal spores, which include 44% atopic and 80% among asthmatics [60].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal bio-aerosol in multiple micro-environments from eastern India: source, distribution, and health hazards

et al. 2020

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Health hazards associated with bio-aerosol is gaining immense importance in recent time. However, studies linking the probable source characterization of bio-aerosol, and their potential effect as respiratory ailments on the local people are extremely rare over the Indian subcontinent as well as in global perspective. To fill our knowledge gap, we have conducted a 3-year study on fungal bio-aerosol characterization, possible source segregation, identification of health hazardous fungal species and their role in causing allergy from seven different micro-environments over a semi-rural site of lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, West Bengal, India. The result showed the highest fungal spore concentration as well as spore diversity in the crop field (4477 ± 1343 spores m −3) and the lowest in the classroom (1994 ± 651 spores m −3). Ascospore, basidiospore, Cladosporium, and Aspergilli group were the primary indoor spores. The marker species for the crop field were Curvularia and Drechslera, whereas Ganoderma was for the factory environment. Source profile of the fungal spore of different micro-environments indicates the domination of outdoor species, whereas enclosed microenvironments have been dominated with spores of indoor origin. Aspergillus, Curvularia, Penicillium, and Rhizopus oryzae showed maximum correlation with the local allergic rhinitis and asthmatic patients. In skin prick test, Aspergillus sp., contributing a maximum percentage of the total culturable fungi, was found to be an expected potent allergic candidate in both non-asthmatic and asthmatic patients, as well. This study will directly help the inhabitants to avoid the hazardous fungal sensitization in different micro-environments.

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Fungal contamination of the respiratory tract and associated respiratory impairment among sawmill workers in India

Cited by 5 publications

References 32 publications

Fungal Fragments and Fungal Aerosol Composition in Sawmills

Fungal Fragments and Fungal Aerosol Composition in Sawmills

The Gender of Fuelwood: Headloads and Truckloads in India

Fungal bio-aerosol in multiple micro-environments from eastern India: source, distribution, and health hazards

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