Coronaviruses and influenza virus are sensitive to acidity of aerosol. pH-mediated rapid inactivation of coronaviruses is possible by enriching the indoor air with non-hazardous levels of nitric acid. Conversely, indoor air filter may unintentionally remove volatile acids thus prolonging persistence of airborne virus. This new understanding can be very helpful in controlling airborne transmission especially in indoor environment such as hospital settings.
Infecciones respiratorias causadas por influir y coronavirus son problemas persistentes importantes para la salud humana. Sólo la gripe es responsable de más de 400,000 muertes al año en todo el mundo. La actual pandemia de COVID-19 atribuida a nuevo coronavirus SARS CoV-2 has caused over 6 million deaths so far plus immense human suffering and unthinkable economic damages to world economy. Therefore, minimising transmission of these virus is an extremely important priority.
It is known that their dominant mode of transmission is airborne. These infections are contracted by breathing in contaminated air. The expiratory aerosol particles act as vehicles for the transmission of influenza virus y novela coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Hence the importance of wearing face coverings. It is hypothesized that the virus can remain in the air for about 3 hours with a half-life of 1.1 hours.
Needless to say, that rapid inactivation of these virus would greatly contribute to limiting their transmission.
It is known that the enveloped virus like influenza and corona virus are inactivated in acidic conditions however level of acidity of expiratory aerosol particles and its role on inactivation of the virus era desconocido
In a recent study published in the preprint medRxiv, the researchers examined this aspect for influenza and coronavirus. They found that the aerosol particles exhaled into indoor air become mildly acidic (pH ≈ 4). This acidic condition rapidly inactivated influenza-A virus within minutes but the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 required days for inactivation. Further, if the indoor air were enriched with non-hazardous levels of nitric acid, the acidity of the aerosol dropped by up to 2 units which in turn reduced the inactivation times for both virus to below 30 seconds. This pH-mediated 99%- reduction in inactivation time could be of great significance in rapid inactivation of these virus in indoor settings thus helping reduce community spread considerably.
A la luz del hallazgo anterior, se debe considerar cuidadosamente el uso de filtros de aire interior porque cualquier eliminación involuntaria de ácidos volátiles del aire interior puede reducir la acidez del aerosol espiratorio y prolongar la transmisión aérea. virus persistencia.
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Referencias:
- COVID-19: What Does Confirmation of the Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Mean? Scientific European. Posted 17 April 2021. Available at http://scientificeuropean.co.uk/covid-19/covid-19-what-does-confirmation-of-the-airborne-transmission-of-sars-cov-2-virus-mean/
- Luo B, et al 2022. Acidity of expiratory aerosols controls the infectivity of airborne influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2. Pre-print medRxiv. Posted March 14, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.14.22272134
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