Open Access

SARS-CoV2 and Air Pollution Interactions: Airborne Transmission and COVID-19

Airways Disease, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Corresponding author: Professor Kian Fan Chung, Airways Disease, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Dovehouse Street, London SW3 6LY, United Kingdom.

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Hisham Abubakar-Waziri

Airways Disease, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Gopinath Kalaiarasan

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

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Ian M Adcock

Airways Disease, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Claire Dilliway

Materials, Department of Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Fangxin Fang

Materials, Department of Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Christopher Pain

Materials, Department of Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Prashant Kumar

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

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Emma Ransome

Department of Life Sciences, Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Vincent Savolainen

Department of Life Sciences, Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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Pankaj Bhavsar

Airways Disease, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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, and

Alexandra Porter

Materials, Department of Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S2529732522400016Cited by:1 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

A link between outdoor pollution of particulate matter (PM) and the mortality from COVID-19 disease has been reported. The potential interaction of SARS-CoV2 emitted from an infected subject in the form of droplets or as an aerosol with PM $_{2.5}$ (PM of 2.5 $μ$ m or less in aerodynamic diameter) may modulate SARS-CoV2 replication and infectivity. This may represent an important airborne route of transmission, which could lead to pneumonia and a poor outcome from COVID-19. Further studies are needed to assess the potential infectivity and severity of such transmission.

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Published: 14 April 2022

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This is an Open Access article published by World Scientific Publishing Company. It is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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SARS-CoV2 and Air Pollution Interactions: Airborne Transmission and COVID-19

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