Modeling aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from human-exhaled particles in a hospital ward
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2021
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into uncharted territory, leaving people feeling helpless in the face of an invisible threat of unknown duration that could adversely impact the national economic growths. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the SARS-CoV-2 spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the mouth or nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. However, the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 through aerosols remains unclear. In this study, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) is used to complement the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 transmission through aerosol. The Lagrangian particle tracking method was used to analyze the dispersion of the exhaled particles from a SARS-CoV-2-positive patient under different exhale activities and different flow rates of chilled (cooling) air supply. Air sampling of the SARS-CoV-2 patient ward was conducted for 48-h measurement intervals to collect the indoor air sample for particulate with diameter less than 2.5 mu m. Then, the reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was conducted to analyze the collected air sample. The simulation demonstrated that the aerosol transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in an enclosed room (such as a hospital ward) is highly possible.
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2, Airborne, Virus transmission, PM2, 5, Computational fluid dynamic
Divisions
fac_med
Funders
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia[COVID-2020-004],Universiti Malaya COVID-19 Special Research Grant[CSRG009-2020ST]
Publication Title
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Volume
28
Issue
38
Publisher
Springer-Heidelberg
Publisher Location
TIERGARTENSTRASSE 17, D-69121 HEIDELBERG, GERMANY