@article{open3061,
          volume = {164},
           month = {August},
          author = {Shivranjani C. Moharir and Sharath Chandra Thota and Arushi Goel and Bhuwaneshwar Thakur and Dixit Tandel and S. Mahesh Reddy and Amareshwar Vodapalli and Gurpreet Singh Bhalla and Dinesh Kumar and Digvijay Singh Naruka and Ashwani Kumar and Amit Tuli and Swathi Suravaram and Thrilok Chander Bingi and M. Srinivas and Rajarao Mesipogu and Krishna Reddy and Sanjeev Khosla and Krishnan H. Harshan and Karthik Bharadwaj Tallapaka and Rakesh K. Mishra},
            note = {The copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier},
           title = {Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the air in Indian hospitals and houses of COVID-19 patients},
       publisher = {Elsevier},
         journal = {JOURNAL OF AEROSOL SCIENCE},
            year = {2022},
        keywords = {Airborne transmission; COVID-19; Closed-room air; Coronavirus; Hospital air; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-2 infection},
             url = {http://crdd.osdd.net/open/3061/},
        abstract = {To understand the transmission characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) through air, samples from different locations occupied by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients were analyzed. Three sampling strategies were used to understand the presence of virus in the air in different environmental conditions. In the first strategy, which involved hospital settings, air samples were collected from several areas of hospitals like COVID-intensive-care units (ICUs), nurse-stations, COVID-wards, corridors, non-COVID-wards, personal protective equipment (PPE) doffing areas, COVID rooms, out-patient (OP) corridors, mortuary, COVID casualty areas, non-COVID ICUs and doctors' rooms. Out of the 80 air samples collected from 6 hospitals from two Indian cities- Hyderabad and Mohali, 30 samples showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids. In the second sampling strategy, that involved indoor settings, one or more COVID-19 patients were asked to spend a short duration of time in a closed room. Out of 17 samples, 5 samples, including 4 samples collected after the departure of three symptomatic patients from the room, showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids. In the third strategy, involving indoor settings, air samples were collected from rooms of houses of home-quarantined COVID-19 patients and it was observed that SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected in the air in the rooms occupied by COVID-19 patients but not in the other rooms of the houses. Taken together, we observed that the air around COVID-19 patients frequently showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in both hospital and indoor residential settings and the positivity rate was higher when 2 or more COVID-19 patients occupied the room. In hospitals, SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected in ICUs as well as in non-ICUs, suggesting that the viral shedding happened irrespective of the severity of the infection. This study provides evidence for the viability of SARS-CoV-2 and its long-range transport through the air. Thus, airborne transmission could be a major mode of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 and appropriate precautions need to be followed to prevent the spread of infection through the air.}
}