Dipartimento di Ambiente e connessa Prevenzione Primaria, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
Ann Ist Super Sanita. 2013;49(2):124-32. doi: 10.4415/ANN_13_02_03.
Indoor human environments, including homes, offices, schools, workplaces, transport systems and other settings, often harbor potentially unsafe microorganisms. Most previous studies of bioaerosols in indoor environments have addressed contamination with bacteria or fungi. Reports on the presence of viral aerosols in indoor air are scarce, however, despite the fact that viruses are probably the most common cause of infection acquired indoor.
This review discusses the most common respiratory (influenza viruses, rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, adenoviruses, respiratory syncytial viruses, and enteroviruses) and gastrointestinal (noroviruses) viral pathogens which can be easily transmitted in indoor environments.
The vast majority of studies reviewed here concern hospital and other health facilities where viruses are a well-known cause of occupational and nosocomial infections. Studies on other indoor environments, on the other hand, including homes, nonindustrial workplaces and public buildings, are scarce.
The lack of regulations, threshold values and standardized detection methods for viruses in indoor environments, make both research and interpretation of results difficult in this field, hampering infection control efforts. Further research will be needed to achieve a better understanding of virus survival in aerosols and on surfaces, and to elucidate the relationship between viruses and indoor environmental characteristics.
室内人类环境，包括家庭、办公室、学校、工作场所、交通系统和其他环境，通常存在潜在不安全的微生物。大多数先前关于室内环境中生物气溶胶的研究都涉及细菌或真菌的污染。然而，尽管病毒可能是室内获得性感染的最常见原因，但有关室内空气中病毒气溶胶存在的报告却很少。
本综述讨论了最常见的呼吸道（流感病毒、鼻病毒、冠状病毒、腺病毒、呼吸道合胞病毒和肠道病毒）和胃肠道（诺如病毒）病毒病原体，它们在室内环境中很容易传播。
这里回顾的绝大多数研究都涉及医院和其他卫生设施，在这些地方，病毒是众所周知的职业和医院获得性感染的原因。另一方面，关于其他室内环境的研究，包括家庭、非工业工作场所和公共建筑，却很少。
由于室内环境中病毒的法规、阈值和标准化检测方法的缺乏，使得该领域的研究和结果解释都很困难，从而阻碍了感染控制工作的开展。需要进一步的研究来更好地了解病毒在气溶胶和表面上的存活情况，并阐明病毒与室内环境特征之间的关系。
