Influenza Virus Aerosols in the Air and Their Infectiousness

Abstract

Influenza is one of the most contagious and rapidly spreading infectious diseases and an important global cause of hospital admissions and mortality. There are some amounts of the virus in the air constantly. These amounts is generally not enough to cause disease in people, due to infection prevention by healthy immune systems. However, at a higher concentration of the airborne virus, the risk of human infection increases dramatically. Early detection of the threshold virus concentration is essential for prevention of the spread of influenza infection. This review discusses different approaches for measuring the amount of influenza A virus particles in the air and assessing their infectiousness. Here we also discuss the data describing the relationship between the influenza virus subtypes and virus air transmission, and distribution of viral particles in aerosol drops of different sizes.

Bioaerosol Sampling in Clinical Settings: A Promising, Noninvasive Approach for Detecting Respiratory Viruses

“…Although much of human-to-human respiratory virus transmission occurs through direct contact (personal or fomite), there is increasing evidence that respiratory viruses may be transmitted in air via large or small respiratory droplets at distances greater than previous anticipated [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In recent studies, researchers at the University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, University of Georgia, and Wake Forest University have pioneered the use of novel bioaerosol sampling techniques in US agricultural and clinical settings [5][6][7][8].…”

Waves of El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Influenza Pandemics

“…Transmission of influenza A viruses in human populations occurs via aerosols (Lindsley et al, 2010b), droplets (Morawska, 2006), or direct contact with infected secretions (Mubareka et al, 2009;Thomas et al, 2014). Influenza particle aerosols are generated when infected subjects cough, sneeze, breath, or talk (Nikitin et al, 2014). Aerosols of aerodynamic equivalent sizes > 4-µm, which take less than 33 min to settle 1 m in still air, and aerosols of 1-µm, which take 8 hrs to settle, show that aerosols of small aerodynamic equivalent sizes will contribute to the spread of infection by surviving longer and with the potential to penetrate deep into lower respiratory tracts (Lindsley et al, 2010a).…”

Laboratory biosafety for handling emerging viruses

“…Four characteristics of virus-host relationship have been proposed to determine aerosol transmission which include the amount of available virus, virus or virus aggregate particle size, level of mucosal inflammation, and efficiency of viral replication in susceptible mucosa [60]. For example, the importance of aerosols in the transmission of influenza virus has been indicated [61,62].…”