AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Design and Performance Evaluation of a Ferret Exposition Chamber for the Study of Airborne Virus Transmission
NATHALIE TURGEON, Daniel Verreault, Dan Zegan, Matthieu Girard, Martin Belzile, Caroline Duchaine, Université Laval, Canada
Abstract Number: 74 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract Several viruses can be transmitted by the airborne route. However, the importance of aerosols in the spread of viruses like influenza is still a subject of debate. Indeed, most viruses can also be transmitted through direct contact and droplets. Therefore, the importance of the airborne route in a clinical context is difficult to determine and requires the use of animals in laboratory settings. Indeed, it allows controlling several parameters like exposure, direct contact, and air flow. The aim of this study is to design a chamber system to study airborne transmission of viruses between ferrets.
We designed a system composed of three chambers connected in series, each one hosting one ferret and preventing direct contact. The chambers are designed to house the ferrets for several days. The ferret placed in the first chamber is infected with a virus using intranasal instillation. The two other chambers house healthy ferrets. The system is designed to study the transmission of viruses from the infected ferret to the two naïve ferrets via aerosols and droplets or aerosols only. The air flow is directed through the system from the HEPA filter at the inlet of the first chamber to the HEPA filter at the exhaust of the third chamber. We designed a particle separator that can be used to modulate the size of the particles traveling between the chambers. An Aerodynamic Particles Sizer was used to validate the efficiency of the particle separator. The 50% efficiency cut off of our separator can be modulated between 5µm to 10µm aerodynamic diameter.
This communication describes the first system designed to study the transmission of airborne viruses between ferrets with particle size control. It can be used to study viruses like influenza. Indeed, ferrets are the most widely used animal model for human influenza studies.