Abstract

A short distance between infected persons and exposed persons can probably result in a high risk of respiratory infection. This work experimentally investigated the short-range bioaerosol deposition and inhalation by a healthy person (HP) and the effect of a personalized ventilation (PV) on the HP, who was exposed to cough droplets from an infected person (IP) over a short distance between 0.5 m and 1.2 m. Benign E. coli was employed to represent the pathogen from the respiratory droplets. The microorganism deposition on different locations of the HP’s body (shoulder, chest and body back) and face (forehead, cheek, and chin) as well as inhalation were characterized by a cultivation method. It was found that the inhalation and deposition of vital pathogens on the face and body surface of the HP increased as the distance between the HP and the IP decreased. PV has been showed to reduce exposure by inhalation, while this is the first time to demonstrate that PV can also significantly reduce the number deposition. By optimizing the velocity of PV flow with respect to the distance, the bioaerosol deposited on the face and body and inhaled could be reduced by a maximum of 98%, 85% and 100%, respectively. For short-range disease transmission, physical barriers, e.g., mask and partition, are the conventional and believed to be the only intervention measures. The current results indicate that PV can be a potential method for infection control in the area of disease transmission in close contact situations.

Copyright © 2021 American Association for Aerosol Research

抽象的

感染者和暴露者之间的距离短可能会导致呼吸道感染的高风险。这项工作通过实验研究了健康人（HP）的短程生物气溶胶沉积和吸入以及个性化通气（PV）对HP的影响，HP在短距离内暴露于感染人（IP）的咳嗽飞沫在0.5 m和1.2 m之间。良性大肠杆菌用来代表呼吸道飞沫中的病原体。通过培养方法来表征微生物在HP身体（肩膀，胸部和身体后部）和面部（额头，脸颊和下巴）的不同位置上的沉积以及吸入。发现随着HP与IP之间的距离减小，重要病原体在HP的面部和身体表面上的吸入和沉积增加。已显示PV可通过吸入减少暴露，而这是首次证明PV也可显着减少沉积数量。通过优化相对于距离的PV流动速度，沉积在面部和身体上以及被吸入的生物气溶胶最多可以分别减少98％，85％和100％。对于短距离疾病传播，存在物理障碍，例如 遮罩和隔板是常规做法，被认为是唯一的干预措施。目前的结果表明，PV可以成为密切接触情况下疾病传播领域控制感染的一种潜在方法。

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