Airborne Transmission of Communicable Infection –the Elusive Pathway

Details

• Personal Author:
  Milton DK ; Roy CJ
• Description:
  What does it mean to describe an infection as having airborne transmission, and what are the clinical implications? There is a fitting symmetry between the report by Yu et al. about airborne transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in this issue of the Journal (pages 1731-1739) and John Snow's investigation of a cholera epidemic 150 years ago. Snow's independent investigation tested the hypothesis that cholera was waterborne. The official investigation by the General Board of Health in England, however, concluded that transmission in the epidemic was airborne, caused by nocturnal vapors emanating from the Thames River - a conclusion that was consistent with the dominant paradigm of the time. Today, the situation is reversed. Yu et al. conducted an independent investigation in which they used computational fluid-dynamics and multizone modeling to test a hypothesis that the outbreak of SARS at the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was caused by airborne transmission. In the official investigation, airborne transmission was not seriously considered, because the current paradigm, as initially described by Charles Chapin in 1910, supports the belief that most communicable respiratory infections are transmitted by means of large droplets over short distances or through contact with contaminated surfaces. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Communicable Diseases Occupational Health Particulate Matter Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Solvents
• Keywords:
  Airborne Particulates Diseases Infectious Agents Infectious Diseases Respiratory Infections SARS Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Vapors
• ISSN:
  0028-4793
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  350
• Issue:
  17
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20059339
• Citation:
  N Engl J Med 2004 Apr; 350(17):1710-1712
• Contact Point Address:
  Chad J. Roy, Center for Aerobiological Sciences, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, MD
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2004
• Performing Organization:
  Harvard School of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20030701
• Source Full Name:
  New England Journal of Medicine
• End Date:
  20050630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d64b81a8b4962f32cc62947332e003dfde68092df757ed4f1561d3f0874b9ecdebeb80d6eed97c470f846f7c0ea138700079471274fc4216623553eca9896310
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/223604/cdc_223604_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 164.50 KB ]