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Padua, April 19 (beraking latest news Salute) – The presence of Covid-19 virus Rna was not detected in atmospheric particulate matter: these are the experimental results of the study -Evaluating the Presence of Sars-CoV-2 Rna in the Particulate Matters During the Peak of Covid-19 in Padua, Northern Italy – conducted by researchers from the Universities of Padua, Perugia and Genoa who thus suggest the low probability of airborne transmission of the same through particulate matter, although, at the moment, there are very few data worldwide to definitively confirm this thesis.
The study, just published in the prestigious journal ‘Science of the Total Environment’, investigated the potential presence of Sars-Cov-2 RNA on a representative series of atmospheric particulate samples collected in the province of Padua, during the first wave of the pandemic. of Sars-CoV-2. Forty-four samples of Pm2.5 and Pm10 were collected between February 24 and March 9, 2020, the period immediately preceding the national lockdown measures, and analyzed at the Hygiene and Applied Microbiology laboratory of the University of Padua. With the impact that Sars-CoV-2 has had and which, unfortunately, is still having in society, new multidisciplinary approaches for monitoring and containing the spread of the virus are increasingly emerging in epidemiology.
Among these, the environmental surveillance of specific matrices such as urban wastewater, solid waste, aerosols, atmospheric particulate is of particular interest; it is characterized by non-intrusive analyzes and monitoring, as a complement to clinical surveillance, based instead on direct diagnoses (eg throat swabs, nasal swabs, serological tests). The main advantage of environmental surveillance is that of being able to potentially quickly return information useful for determining the presence of Sars-CoV-2 and / or other similar viruses not in the single subject, but in a specific geographical area or community. This approach would allow the presence of viruses to be continuously and promptly detected, allowing for faster and more effective containment interventions.
Among environmental surveillance, the possible presence of Sars-CoV-2 in atmospheric particulate matter is of particular concern in public opinion, essentially for two reasons. First, airborne transmission for several respiratory viruses, including Sars-CoV-2, has been recognized as one of the main mechanisms for spreading the infection. Second, some studies (Cascetta et al., 2021; Coccia 2020; Bontempi 2020; Setti et al. 2020a) have found a correlation between the exceeding of PM10 concentration limits in some Italian cities and the number of Covid-19 cases. , without however concluding with a clear causal link or that the particulate matter is a further vehicle for the spread of the virus.
“The results of our research refer to a precise time frame and geographical context and cannot exclude a priori the possible presence of RNA of the virus in other cases, as documented in another study in Italy (Setti et al. , 2020b) – explains Prof. Alberto Pivato of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Padua and first author of the study -. Nevertheless, given the poor ability to survive outside the host or infected cells, it can be reasonably hypothesized that the virus is in an inactive form also due to the specific conditions in which it is found in the external environment (presence of ultraviolet rays and other oxidizing agents) which contribute to its rapid degradation. In any case, even if the virus were in active, the strong dilution in air, and the experimental data would show it, would result in an extremely low probability that the subjects could be exposed to the c or said infectious dose, with a consequent negligible risk of contracting the infection. In fact, it is not sufficient for a susceptible subject to become infected that he comes into contact with the virus in some way: it is also necessary that a certain amount of active virus (or infectious dose) overcome the body’s defenses and penetrate inside. it”.
In conclusion, beyond the real consequences for the spread of the infection, further investigations and improvements of the current systems of sampling, storage of samples and chemical-biological analysis are necessary to better understand how and if the discussed environmental surveillance of particulate matter can represent an efficient tool to support the planning of pandemic containment measures.