Evaluation of the exposure risk of SARS-CoV-2 in different hospital environment

Xing-Yi Ge; Ying Pu; Ce-Heng Liao; Wen-Fen Huang; Qi Zeng; Hui Zhou; Bin Yi; Ai-Min Wang; Qing-Ya Dou; Peng-Cheng Zhou; Hui-Ling Chen; Hui-Xia Liu; Dao-Miao Xu; Xiang Chen; Xun Huang

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2020.102413

Evaluation of the exposure risk of SARS-CoV-2 in different hospital environment

Sustain Cities Soc. 2020 Oct:61:102413. doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2020.102413. Epub 2020 Jul 22.

Authors

Xing-Yi Ge¹, Ying Pu^{2

3}, Ce-Heng Liao¹, Wen-Fen Huang⁴, Qi Zeng⁵, Hui Zhou⁶, Bin Yi⁶, Ai-Min Wang⁷, Qing-Ya Dou², Peng-Cheng Zhou², Hui-Ling Chen³, Hui-Xia Liu³, Dao-Miao Xu⁸, Xiang Chen⁹, Xun Huang^{2

10}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Pathogen Biology and Immunology, College of Biology, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Virology, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Hospital Infection Control Center, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Department of Endocrine Subspecialty of Gerontology, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁴ Department of Infectious Diseases, Chenzhou Second People's Hospital, Chenzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Infectious Diseases, Shaoyang Central Hospital, Shaoyang, China.
⁶ Clinical Laboratory, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁷ Department of Emergency Medicine, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁸ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁹ Department of Dermatology, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹⁰ National Center for Clinical Medicine of Geriatric Diseases, Changsha, China.

Abstract

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed a significant impact on social and economic activities. As a high infectious pathogen, the existence of SARS-CoV-2 in public space is very important for its transmission. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are the main places to deal with the diseases. In this work, we evaluated the exposure risk of SARS-CoV-2 in hospital environment in order to protect healthcare workers (HCWs). Briefly, air and surface samples from 6 different sites of 3 hospitals with different protection levels were collected and tested for the SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid by reverse transcription real-time fluorescence PCR method during the COVID-19 epidemic. We found that the positive rate of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid was 7.7 % in a COVID-19 respiratory investigation wards and 82.6 % in a ICUs with confirmed COVID-19 patients. These results indicated that in some wards of the hospital, such as ICUs occupied by COVID-19 patients, the nucleic acid of SARS-CoV-2 existed in the air and surface, which indicates the potential occupational exposure risk of HCWs. This study has clarified retention of SARS-CoV-2 in different sites of hospital, suggesting that it is necessary to monitor and disinfect the SARS-CoV-2 in hospital environment during COVID-19 pandemic, and will help to prevent the iatrogenic infection and nosocomial transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and to better protect the HCWs.

Keywords: COVID-19; HCWs; Nucleic acid test; Occupational exposure risk; SARS-CoV-2.