Parry-Nweye Eloise, Liu Zhenlei, Dhaouadi Yousr, Guo Xin, Huang Wenfeng, Zhang Jianshun, Ren Dacheng
Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, United States of America.
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 6;20(1):e0313604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0313604. eCollection 2025.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus caused the COVID-19 pandemic and brought major challenges to public health. It is transmitted via aerosols, droplets, and fomites. Among these, viral transmission through fomites is not well understood although it remains a very important transmission route. This motivated us to study how fomites play a role in viral transmission within controlled indoor environments. To achieve this, we investigated viral aerosol persistence on fomites under different humidity levels to mimic the built environment. We developed a protocol to study the effect of humidity on viral infectivity using a full-scale environmental chamber. The results show that the infectivity of aerosolized Phi6 in air decreased by ≥ 1 log10 as the relative humidity (RH) increased from 25% to 75% but then increased by ≥ 1 log10 as the RH further increased to 85%, resulting in a characteristic V-shape curve which varied with exposure time. Consistently, we show that although material properties may impact viral persistence, changes in the local humidity more significantly influence viral persistence on fomites. These results provide new insights into indoor fomite-mediated viral transmission under different environmental conditions. These findings will help guide the design of more effective strategies for viral control in indoor environments.
严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）引发了新冠疫情，给公共卫生带来了重大挑战。它通过气溶胶、飞沫和污染物传播。其中，病毒通过污染物传播的情况尚未得到充分了解，尽管这仍是一条非常重要的传播途径。这促使我们研究污染物在可控室内环境中如何在病毒传播中发挥作用。为实现这一目标，我们在不同湿度水平下研究了污染物上病毒气溶胶的持久性，以模拟建筑环境。我们开发了一种方案，使用全尺寸环境舱研究湿度对病毒感染性的影响。结果表明，随着相对湿度（RH）从25%增加到75%，空气中雾化的Phi6的感染性降低了≥1个对数10，但当RH进一步增加到85%时，感染性又增加了≥1个对数10，形成了一条随暴露时间变化的特征性V形曲线。同样，我们表明，虽然材料特性可能影响病毒的持久性，但局部湿度的变化对污染物上病毒持久性的影响更为显著。这些结果为不同环境条件下室内污染物介导的病毒传播提供了新的见解。这些发现将有助于指导设计更有效的室内病毒控制策略。
