ISLAMABAD:The study is the first report of household air contamination with SARS-CoV-2 RNA under typical daily living conditions when a household member is infected.
Airborne transmission in crowded living conditions may be one reason for higher rates of COVID-19 infection among people with lower incomes.
“Risk of infection from larger respiratory droplets that rapidly settle onto surfaces, typically within two meters of the source, can be reduced by hand-washing, social distancing, and face masks, but the tiny respiratory particles that stay suspended in the air for hours, require air filtration, ventilation or better masks for prevention,” said lead author Howard Kipen, a professor at Rutgers School of Public Health, US and Director of Clinical Research and Occupational Medicine at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute.
The researchers collected air samples from 11 homes in rooms where a newly infected person was isolated, as well as in an adjacent common room to test for the presence of three SARS-CoV-2-specific genes in airborne particles.
The researchers found positive air samples for at least one of three virus genes in six
of the 11 isolation rooms and in six of the nine common rooms. Seven of these nine homes reported no other cases in the home, Medical Daily reported.
To better understand how the virus spreads in the home, participants were asked to record their time in the isolation room and the common room.
“We discovered that many did not strictly adhere to self-isolation, with eight of the 11 infected study participants reporting spending from a few hours to 14 hours in the common room and five of 11 participants reporting spending time in other areas of the home,” Kipen said.