Dependence of aerosol-borne influenza A virus infectivity on relative humidity and aerosol composition.

ABSTRACT: We describe a novel biosafety aerosol chamber equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation for bubble-bursting aerosol generation, size distribution measurement, and condensation-growth collection to minimize sampling artifacts when measuring virus infectivity in aerosol particles. Using this facility, we investigated the effect of relative humidity (RH) in very clean air without trace gases (except ∼400 ppm CO₂) on the preservation of influenza A virus (IAV) infectivity in saline aerosol particles. We characterized infectivity in terms of 99%-inactivation time, t ₉₉, a metric we consider most relevant to airborne virus transmission. The viruses remained infectious for a long time, namely t ₉₉ > 5 h, if RH < 30% and the particles effloresced

SUBMITTER: Motos G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11521868 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature