A field indoor air measurement of SARS-CoV-2 in the patient rooms of the largest hospital in Iran

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan city, China, in late 2019 and has rapidly spread throughout the world. The major route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is in contention, with the airborne route a likely transmission pathway for carrying the virus within indoor environments. Until now, there has been no evidence for detection of airborne severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and this may have implication for the potential spread of the COVID-19. We investigated the air of patient rooms with confirmed COVID-19 in the largest hospital in Iran, on March 17, 2020. To collect the SARS-CoV-2 particles, ten air samples were collected into the sterile standard midget impingers containing 20 mL DMEM with 100 μg/mL streptomycin, 100 U/mL penicillin and 1 antifoam reagent for 1 h. Besides, indoor particle number concentrations, CO2, relative humidity and temperature were recorded throughout the sampling duration. Viral RNA was extracted from samples taken from the impingers and Reverse-Transcription PCR (RT-PCR) was applied to confirm the positivity of collected samples based on the virus genome sequence. Fortunately, in this study all air samples which were collected 2 to 5 m from the patients' beds with confirmed COVID-19 were negative. Despite we indicated that all air samples were negative, however, we suggest further in vivo experiments should be conducted using actual patient cough, sneeze and breath aerosols in order to show the possibility of generation of the airborne size carrier aerosols and the viability fraction of the embedded virus in those carrier aerosols. © 2020 Elsevier B.V

Immunogenicity of trivalent influenza vaccine in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia during maintenance therapy

Purpose. The aim of this study was to assess the immune response of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) to influenza vaccine and to compare it with healthy controls. Procedure. Thirty-two children aged 1-18 years with ALL on maintenance therapy and 30 healthy sibling controls were enrolled in the study. All children were vaccinated with trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Hemagglutinin-inhibition (HI) antibody titers were determined in sera of both patient and control groups just before and 4 weeks after vaccination. The ability of each group to mount a protective (�40) and/or fourfold titer was measured. Results. The protective response for virus subunits among patients and healthy controls were 43.4 versus 88 for H1N1 (P=0.04), 63.3 versus 80 for H3N2 antigens (P=0.06), and 26 versus 73 for B antigen (P=0.001). Responses for H1N1 and B subunits were significantly lower in patients than controls. In the patient group, the significant response to each virus was demonstrated in the analysis of pre- and post-vaccination geometric mean titer (GMT) (P=0.001). The percentage of patients and controls with fourfold increase in HI titers were 56.2 versus 80 for H1N1 (P=0.04), 40.6 versus 53.3 for H3N2 (P=0.31), and 59.4 versus 83.3 for B (P=0.038). Immune responses for H1N1 and B subunits were significantly lower in patients than controls. Conclusions. Influenza vaccine is tolerated well in ALL patients with acceptable but limited immune response compared to healthy controls. These findings support the recommendation for annual influenza vaccination in children with ALL. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc