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Environmental contamination with SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 hospitals in Wuhan,China, 2020 |
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| Authors: | Wei Liu Dingchen Li Chaojie Yang Fangyan Chen Ruizhong Jia Leili Jia Xinyi Xia Shanhong Fan Qing Tan Yuehua Ke Yong Chen Haifeng Li Linfeng Zhan Xiong Liu Jianping You Xiaolin Fu Dan Li Lin Zhang Changjun Wang Li Han |
| Affiliation: | 1. Chinese PLA Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Beijing, China Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan, China These first authors contributed equally to this article.;2. Chinese PLA Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Beijing, China;3. Chinese PLA Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Beijing, China These first authors contributed equally to this article.;4. Chinese PLA Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Beijing, China Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan, China;5. Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan, China;6. TaiKang Tongji Hospital, Wuhan, China;7. Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital (Guanggu District), Wuhan, China |
| Abstract: | Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused high number of infections and deaths of healthcare workers globally. Distribution and possible transmission route of SARS-CoV-2 in hospital environment should be clarified. We herein collected 431 environmental (391 surface and 40 air) samples in the intensive care unit (ICU) and general wards (GWs) of three hospitals in Wuhan, China from February 21 to March 4, 2020, and detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA by real-time quantitative PCR. The viral positive rate in the contaminated areas was 17.8% (28/157), whereas there was no virus detected in the clean areas. Higher positive rate (22/59, 37.3%) was found in ICU than that in GWs (3/63, 4.8%). The surfaces of computer keyboards and mouse in the ICU were the most contaminated (8/10, 80.0%), followed by the ground (6/9, 66.7%) and outer glove (2/5, 40.0%). From 17 air samples in the contaminated areas, only one sample collected at a distance of around 30 cm from the patient was positive. Enhanced surface disinfection and hand hygiene effectively decontaminated the virus from the environment. This finding might help understand the transmission route and contamination risk of SARS-CoV-2 and evaluate the effectiveness of infection prevention and control measures in healthcare facilities. |
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