A study has confirmed that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is airborne and that if two or more Covid-19 infected individuals are in a room, the virus in air had the positivity rate of 75 per cent.
The findings of the collaborative study by the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and CSIR-IMTech, Chandigarh, were published in the Journal of Aerosol Science.
The study has confirmed the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in both ICU and non-ICU wings, suggesting that patients shed the virus in air, irrespective of the severity of infection.
The study also found viable coronavirus in air that could infect living cells, and that these viruses could spread over a long-range. .
“Our results show that coronavirus can stay in the air for some time in absence of ventilation in closed spaces. We find that the positivity rate of finding the virus in air was 75 per cent when two or more Covid-19 patients were present in a room, in contrast to 15.8 per cent when one or no Covid patients occupied the room in these studies,” said Dr Shivranjani Moharir, scientist involved in the study.
For the study, the scientists analysed for the coronavirus’ genome content from air samples collected from different spaces occupied by Covid-19 patients, including samples from hospitals, closed rooms in which only Covid-19 patients spent a short period of time and houses of home-quarantined patients.
The study found that the virus could be frequently detected in the air around Covid patients and, moreover, the positivity rate increased with the number of patients present at a premise.
“Our observations are concurrent with previous studies that suggest that the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is higher in indoor air as compared to outdoor air; and indoors, it is higher in hospital and healthcare settings that host a larger number of Covid-19 patients, as compared to that in community indoor settings,” Dr Shivranjani Moharir added.
Meanwhile, Dr Rakesh Mishra, the lead scientist of the study, emphasised on the need for air surveillance.
“As we are back to conducting in-person activities, air surveillance is a useful means to predict infection potential of spaces like classrooms, meeting halls. This can help refine strategies to control the spread of infections,” he said, adding yhat air surveillance technique is not just limited to coronavirus but can also be optimised to monitor other air-borne infections.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment