The Transmission of Colds and Coughs

Abstract

The commonest adverse health effect from the indoor environment is a respiratory tract infection, most often a common cold. Any one of a number of viruses can cause colds. The full process by which infections are contracted is poorly understood. However, there must be direct contact between the infecting agent and the nasal or lower airway cells. Such contact may follow dispersal as airborne droplets (5-20 pm), generated by sneezing. Alternatively, a dose of infective agent may be transmitted on the fingers, causing a cold when these come in contact with susceptible tissue. If this were the case, one would expect to be able to reduce transmission with simple hygiene procedures employing viricidal solutions. The experimental evidence for this is equivocal, suggesting that most common colds are transmitted via the indoor air.

Categories of Adverse Health Effects from Indoor Air Pollution

“…especially important with respect to building occupancy, thus, for example, excluding upper respiratory tract in fections, which can be contracted outdoors although most infections will occur in the indoor environment [65,66],…”

Indoor Air Quality and Respiratory Disease

“…In humid ifier fever, the situation can be perplexing since the con cept of dead micro-organisms causing disease is not readi ly understood, and traditional measures may only serve to exacerbate the situation. However, these have now been supplemented by methods of genome amplification using the polymerase chain reac tion which are sensitive specific ways of detecting viral nucleic acid [21]. In spite of all these and many other bio logical differences, the relevant viruses have the ability to infect and damage the cells of the human respiratory epi thelium and to cause respiratory disease.…”