Hyderabad: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (Imtech), Chandigarh has released their data on the air-borne nature of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Scientists have worked with hospitals, 3 in Hyderabad and 3 in Chandigarh to find if the virus particles can be found in air samples in the hospital wards. They used an air sampler that can collect the virus particles, and then looked for their presence using RT-PCR.
In this study, the virus was found in air samples from COVID-19 wards from hospitals but not from non-COVID-19 wards. This has suggested that the distinction of hospital zones has been an effective strategy. The study has also shown the chances of picking up covid-19 in the air is directly related to a number of COVID-19 positive cases in the room, their symptomatic status, and the duration of exposure. When COVID-19 individuals spent long hours in a room, the virus is found in the air for more than 2 hours even farther than 2 meters from their seating places. But for asymptomatic cases, they showed the virus does not spread farther from them when they are seated in a room without perceived airflow due to a fan or AC.
Dr. Sanjeev Khosla, Director, Imtech. said “Till the vaccines are available, social vaccine i.e. wearing a mask is the best prevention,”.
Dr. Rakesh Mishra, Director, CCMB, and the corresponding author on this study comments that. “All these findings do show that the coronavirus can stay in the air for some time. But they also have strengthened the importance of COVID-19 preventive guidelines that we already have in place to curb this pandemic. If we ensure that we follow hygiene protocols such as regular handwashing, using masks effectively, and preventing symptomatic people from public mixing, we can start getting back to normalcy more comfortably. Detecting and isolating the positive cases early on can help prevent the spread among other family members in a home setting too”.
