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COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting

As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has surged across the globe, great effort has been expended to understand mechanisms of transmission and spread. From a hospital perspective, this topic is critical to limit and prevent SARS-CoV-2 iatrogenic transmission within the heal...

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Autores principales: Bartlett, Christopher, Langsjoen, Jens, Cheng, Qiuying, Yingling, Alexandra V, Weiss, Myissa, Bradfute, Steven, Perkins, Douglas J, Hurwitz, Ivy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8461048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34219476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15353702211024597
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author Bartlett, Christopher
Langsjoen, Jens
Cheng, Qiuying
Yingling, Alexandra V
Weiss, Myissa
Bradfute, Steven
Perkins, Douglas J
Hurwitz, Ivy
author_facet Bartlett, Christopher
Langsjoen, Jens
Cheng, Qiuying
Yingling, Alexandra V
Weiss, Myissa
Bradfute, Steven
Perkins, Douglas J
Hurwitz, Ivy
author_sort Bartlett, Christopher
collection PubMed
description As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has surged across the globe, great effort has been expended to understand mechanisms of transmission and spread. From a hospital perspective, this topic is critical to limit and prevent SARS-CoV-2 iatrogenic transmission within the healthcare environment. Currently, the virus is believed to be transmitted primarily through respiratory droplets, but a growing body of evidence suggests that spread is also possible through aerosolized particles and fomites. Amidst a growing volume of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential for SARS-CoV-2 transmission through fomites. Samples collected from the exposed skin of clinicians (n = 42) and high-touch surfaces (n = 40) were collected before and after encounters with COVID-19 patients. Samples were analyzed using two assays: the CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time Reverse Transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay, and a SYBR Green assay that targeted a 121 bp region within the S-gene of SARS-CoV-2. None of the samples tested positive with the CDC assay, while two high-touch surface areas tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 using the Spike assay. However, viral culture did not reveal viable SARS-CoV-2 from the positive samples. Overall, the results from this study suggest that SARS-CoV-2 RNA were not widely present either on exposed skin flora or high-touch surface areas in the hospital locations tested. The inability to recover viable virus from samples that tested positive by the molecular assays, however, does not rule out the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through fomites.
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spelling pubmed-84610482021-09-25 COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting Bartlett, Christopher Langsjoen, Jens Cheng, Qiuying Yingling, Alexandra V Weiss, Myissa Bradfute, Steven Perkins, Douglas J Hurwitz, Ivy Exp Biol Med (Maywood) Original Research As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has surged across the globe, great effort has been expended to understand mechanisms of transmission and spread. From a hospital perspective, this topic is critical to limit and prevent SARS-CoV-2 iatrogenic transmission within the healthcare environment. Currently, the virus is believed to be transmitted primarily through respiratory droplets, but a growing body of evidence suggests that spread is also possible through aerosolized particles and fomites. Amidst a growing volume of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential for SARS-CoV-2 transmission through fomites. Samples collected from the exposed skin of clinicians (n = 42) and high-touch surfaces (n = 40) were collected before and after encounters with COVID-19 patients. Samples were analyzed using two assays: the CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time Reverse Transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay, and a SYBR Green assay that targeted a 121 bp region within the S-gene of SARS-CoV-2. None of the samples tested positive with the CDC assay, while two high-touch surface areas tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 using the Spike assay. However, viral culture did not reveal viable SARS-CoV-2 from the positive samples. Overall, the results from this study suggest that SARS-CoV-2 RNA were not widely present either on exposed skin flora or high-touch surface areas in the hospital locations tested. The inability to recover viable virus from samples that tested positive by the molecular assays, however, does not rule out the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through fomites. SAGE Publications 2021-07-04 2021-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8461048/ /pubmed/34219476 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15353702211024597 Text en © 2021 by the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research
Bartlett, Christopher
Langsjoen, Jens
Cheng, Qiuying
Yingling, Alexandra V
Weiss, Myissa
Bradfute, Steven
Perkins, Douglas J
Hurwitz, Ivy
COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title_full COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title_fullStr COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title_short COVID-19 global pandemic planning: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
title_sort covid-19 global pandemic planning: presence of sars-cov-2 fomites in a university hospital setting
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8461048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34219476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15353702211024597
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