Walker, MD, Vincent, JC, Benson, L et al. (9 more authors) (2022) Effect of relative humidity on transfer of aerosol deposited artificial and human saliva from surfaces to artificial finger-pads. Viruses, 14 (5). 1048. ISSN 1999-4915
Abstract
Surface to hand transfer of viruses represents a potential mechanism for human exposure. An experimental process for evaluating the touch transfer of aerosol-deposited material is described based on controlling surface, tribological, and soft matter components of the transfer process. A range of high-touch surfaces were evaluated. Under standardized touch parameters (15 N, 1 s), relative humidity (RH) of the atmosphere around the contact transfer event significantly influenced transfer of material to the finger-pad. At RH < 40%, transfer from all surfaces was <10%. Transfer efficiency increased markedly as RH increased, reaching a maximum of approximately 50%. The quantity of material transferred at specific RHs above 40% was also dependent on roughness of the surface material and the properties of the aerosol-deposited material. Smooth surfaces, such as melamine and stainless steel, generated higher transfer efficiencies compared to those with textured roughness, such as ABS pinseal and KYDEX® plastics. Pooled human saliva was transferred at a lower rate compared to artificial saliva, indicating the role of rheological properties. The artificial saliva data were modeled by non-linear regression and the impact of environmental humidity and temperature were evaluated within a Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment model using SARS-CoV-2 as an example. This illustrated that the trade-off between transfer efficiency and virus survival may lead to the highest risks of fomite transmissions in indoor environments with higher humidity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | touch; transfer; surface; saliva; respiratory; gastrointestinal; virus |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Civil Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Applied Mathematics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NIHR National Inst Health Research Not Known |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 May 2022 15:03 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:58 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/v14051048 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186657 |