AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Characterization of Atmospheric Bioaerosols Found in Tijuana, Mexico
LILIA HURTADO, Guillermo Rodriguez, Penelope Quintana, Miguel Zavala, Jonathan Lopez, Mariela Juarez, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, Tijuana, Mexico
Abstract Number: 221 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract The atmosphere is not considered a habitat for microorganisms, but a variety of them that are transported through it during their life cycle. These microorganisms in the atmosphere has great environmental importance by their degree of dispersion that can be achieved by partnering with condensation nuclei, freezing and fog. Microorganisms come from both natural and anthropogenic sources and distribution is regulated by atmospheric chemistry, biological and meteorological factors. In this work, 9 different areas of the city of Tijuana were periodically samples for aerial microbial content during one year period (2012-2013). Overall viable counting afther air collection by an impactation method with Millipore M Air T air analyzer, showed levels of microbial contamination of 2,500 to 50,000 CFU/liter.
The above results were correlated with meteorological variable sampling area and allow noted that variation in microbial concentration is regulated by relative humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction. Also found higher microbial load in the period from June to September and a considerable decrease in November to February. Several potentially pathogen bacteria were detected, such as Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the must common. The incidence of bacterial showed a different temporal ditribution. This is the first work of evaluation of bioaerosols in the northwest of the country.