Detection of Airborne Rhinovirus and Its Relation to Outdoor Air Supply in Office Environments

Details

• Personal Author:
  Johnston SL ; Kebadze T ; Milton DK ; Myatt TA ; Rudnick S ; Wand M ; Zuo Z
• Description:
  Rhinoviruses are major causes of morbidity in patients with respiratory diseases; however, their modes of transmission are controversial. We investigated detection of airborne rhinovirus in office environments by polymerase chain reaction technology and related detection to outdoor air supply rates. We sampled air from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. each workday, with each sample run for 1 work week. We directly extracted RNA from the filters for nested reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis of rhinovirus. Nasal lavage samples from building occupants with upper respiratory infections were also collected. Indoor carbon dioxide (CO2 concentrations were recorded every 10 minutes as a surrogate for outdoor air supply. To increase the range of CO2 concentrations, we adjusted the outdoor air supply rates every 3 months. Generalized additive models demonstrated an association between the probability of detecting airborne rhinovirus and a weekly average CO2 concentration greater than approximately 100 ppm, after controlling for covariates. In addition, one rhinovirus from a nasal lavage contained an identical nucleic acid sequence similar to that in the building air collected during the same week. These results suggest that occupants in buildings with low outdoor air supply may have an increased risk of exposure to infectious droplet nuclei emanating from a fellow building occupant. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aerosols Asthma Asthma, Occupational Environmental Monitoring Occupational Health Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety
• Keywords:
  Aerosol-sampling Air-sampling Bronchial-asthma Pulmonary-system-disorders Respiratory-infections Respiratory-system-disorders
• ISSN:
  1073-449X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  169
• Issue:
  11
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20029307
• Citation:
  Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2004 Jun; 169(11):1187-1190
• Contact Point Address:
  Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115-6021
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2004
• NORA Priority Area:
  Work Environment and Workforce: Indoor Environment
• Performing Organization:
  Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19980930
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
• End Date:
  20010929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:a969275f0de77aa55d542eea029f077743687c74cfea328bc59839bd080f2d0f130b88e0bddeb4db3342a6a8030182db029d97a0710816eef286fb32dd662325
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/190326/cdc_190326_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 74.91 KB ]