New evidence of airborne spread of virus
Print Edition
THE World Health Organization on Tuesday acknowledged “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus, after a group of scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people.
“We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of COVID-19,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic at the WHO. She said the WHO would publish a scientific brief summarizing the state of knowledge on modes of transmission of the virus in the coming days.
Any change in the WHO’s assessment of risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping 1-meter of physical distancing.
The WHO has previously said the virus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease spreads primarily through small droplets expelled from the nose and mouth of an infected person that quickly sink to the ground. But in an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, published on Monday in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, 239 scientists in 32 countries said exhaled droplets under 5 micrometers in size that contain the virus can become suspended in the air for several hours and travel up to tens of meters.
“...The possibility of airborne transmission in public settings — especially in very specific conditions, crowded, closed, poorly ventilated settings that have been described, cannot be ruled out,” Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO’s technical lead for infection prevention and control, said. “However, the evidence needs to be gathered and interpreted, and we continue to support this.”
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