Morawska L
School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, and International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Indoor Air. 2006 Oct;16(5):335-47. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0668.2006.00432.x.
When considering how people are infected and what can be done to prevent the infections, answers from many disciplines are sought: microbiology, epidemiology, medicine, engineering, and physics. There are many pathways to infection spread, and among the most significant from the epidemiological point of view is airborne transport. Microorganisms can become airborne when droplets are generated during speech, coughing, sneezing, vomiting, or atomization of feces during sewage removal. The fate of the droplets is governed by the physical principles of transport, with droplet size being the most important factor affecting their dispersion, deposition on surfaces and determining the survival of microorganisms within the droplets. In addition, physical characteristics of the indoor environment as well as the design and operation of building ventilation systems are of critical importance. Do we understand the mechanisms of infection spread and can we quantify the droplet dynamics under various indoor conditions? Unfortunately no, as this aspect of infection spread has attracted surprisingly little scientific interest. However, investigations of numerous cases in which a large number of people were infected show how critical the physics of microorganism spread can be. This paper reviews the state of knowledge regarding mechanisms of droplet spread and solutions available to minimize the spread and prevent infections.
Every day tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from viral infections of different severity at immense economic cost. There is, however, only minimal understanding of the dynamics of virus-laden aerosols, and so the ability to control and prevent virus spread is severely reduced, as was clearly demonstrated during the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic. This paper proposes the direction to significantly advance fundamental and applied knowledge of the pathways of viral infection spread in indoor atmospheric systems, through a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach and application of state-of-the-art scientific methods. Knowledge gained will have the potential to bring unprecedented economical gains worldwide by minimizing/reducing the spread of disease.
在考虑人们如何被感染以及可以采取哪些措施预防感染时，需要从多个学科寻求答案：微生物学、流行病学、医学、工程学和物理学。感染传播有许多途径，从流行病学角度来看，最重要的途径之一是空气传播。当在说话、咳嗽、打喷嚏、呕吐或污水处理过程中粪便雾化时产生飞沫，微生物就会进入空气中。飞沫的命运受传输物理原理的支配，飞沫大小是影响其扩散、在表面沉积以及决定飞沫内微生物存活的最重要因素。此外，室内环境的物理特性以及建筑通风系统的设计和运行也至关重要。我们是否了解感染传播的机制，能否量化各种室内条件下的飞沫动态？遗憾的是，我们并不了解，因为感染传播的这一方面令人惊讶地很少引起科学关注。然而，对大量人群感染的众多案例的调查表明，微生物传播的物理学原理可能有多关键。本文综述了关于飞沫传播机制的知识现状以及可用于减少传播和预防感染的解决方案。
全球每天有数百万人遭受不同严重程度的病毒感染，经济成本巨大。然而，对于载有病毒的气溶胶的动态了解甚少，因此控制和预防病毒传播的能力严重下降，最近的严重急性呼吸综合征疫情就清楚地证明了这一点。本文提出了一个方向，即通过全面的多学科方法和应用最先进的科学方法，显著推进对室内大气系统中病毒感染传播途径的基础和应用知识的了解。所获得的知识有可能通过最大限度地减少/降低疾病传播，在全球带来前所未有的经济收益。
