Contamination of surfaces and air in hospitals by SARS-CoV2 patients

 By: Azeneth Ramos

The figure shows the location and percentage of sampled contaminated places inside hospital rooms due to SARS-CoV-2.

Being able to identify the level of risks from patients infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that pass onto environmental contamination by testing the air and surfaces surrounding hospitalized COVID-19 patients at different stages of illness. It's vital to understand the particle size distribution in air and environmental contamination of SARS-CoV-2 for the prevention of infections. Method one, done for air sampling in three out of the 27 airborne infection isolation rooms (AIIRS) detected positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive particles, despite the changing of 12 air exhaust vent per hour. With air contaminated rooms also surface contamination was detected. A study done was for the presence of environmental surface contamination, Chia and colleagues concluded that higher contamination within the first week of illness was shown. Inside the room with environmental contamination, the floor resulted in being most contaminated, followed by the air exhaust vent, then bed rail, and lastly bedside locker. Chia and colleagues also concluded that SARS-CoV-2 is only able to remain alive in aerosols for up to 3 hours. Further investigation of findings in bigger numbers and in different settings to better grasp the factors affecting surface and air spread of SARS-CoV-2 and enforce effective prevention policies is important. 

Original Article:

Chia, P.Y., Coleman, K.K., Tan, Y.K. et al. Detection of air and surface contaminated by SARS-CoV-2 in hospital rooms of infected patients. Nat Commun 11, 2800 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16670-2