AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Modelling the Transport of Infectious Aerosols in Containment Patient Care Settings Using DNA-tagged Microspheres
JOSHUA SANTARPIA, Danielle Rivera, Kevin Crown, Sean Kinahan, John Lowe, Jocelyn Herstein, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Abstract Number: 809 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract The West African Ebola outbreak from 2014-2016 brought the care of patients with highly infectious diseases into the public concern. The infection of a caregiver in a U.S. hospital highlighted the need to care for these patients in specialized facilities. Ongoing outbreaks of Ebola, and increasing concern over highly infectious diseases that can be transmitted via the respiratory route (coronaviruses, influenza, etc.) highlight the need to understand the behavior of potentially infectious aerosols in a patient care environments designed for containment of these diseases. Since it is both unsafe and impractical to use infectious particles to examine the spread of particles in these environments, particularly in active hospital and patient care environments, new methods are needed. In this study, DNA-tagged microspheres of known size are used to examine particle dispersion in the Biocontainment Unit of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where several Ebola patients were cared for during the 2016 outbreak and in a model, portable containment patient care unit. In the latter, mock patient care was performed by trained technicians to demonstrate how patient care activities may spread aerosolized particles. Findings indicate locations where air sampling may be beneficial to determine the aerosol hazard of a new infectious disease, if it is unknown, and demonstrate the degree to which an infectious aerosol may be transported by patient care activities.