HO-18-C004 -- Viral Particle Dispersion and Viability in Commercial Aircraft Cabins PDF

There is a demonstrated public health interest in characterizing the transmission mechanisms of infectious disease within commercial aircraft cabins.Recent outbreaks of SARS, MERS, and EVD have reinvigorated interest in quantifying risks associated with this mode of global travel. Weexamined the dispersion of aerosolized bacteriophage particles within single- (737) and twin-aisle (767) commercial aircraft cabins with closelyapproximated ventilation systems. Viral particles were introduced under controlled conditions and collected by active air sampling, simultaneouslythroughout the cabin, over defined periods. Phage dispersion was found to be well correlated with linear distance, and aggregate data from multiple originswithin each cabin resulted in coefficients of determination of 0.758 and 0.704, for the single- and twin-aisle cabins, respectively, when fit to exponentialdecay curves.