title: Effects of temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, and evaporation potential on survival of airborne Gumboro vaccine virus.
abstract: Survival of airborne virus influences the extent of disease transmission via air. How environmental factors affect viral survival is not fully understood. We investigated the survival of a vaccine strain of Gumboro virus which was aerosolized at three temperatures (10°C, 20°C, and 30°C) and two relative humidities (RHs) (40% and 70%). The response of viral survival to four metrics (temperature, RH, absolute humidity [AH], and evaporation potential [EP]) was examined. The results show a biphasic viral survival at 10°C and 20°C, i.e., a rapid initial inactivation in a short period (2.3 min) during and after aerosolization, followed by a slow secondary inactivation during a 20-min period after aerosolization. The initial decays of aerosolized virus at 10°C (1.68 to 3.03 ln % min(-1)) and 20°C (3.05 to 3.62 ln % min(-1)) were significantly lower than those at 30°C (5.67 to 5.96 ln % min(-1)). The secondary decays at 10°C (0.03 to 0.09 ln % min(-1)) tended to be higher than those at 20°C (-0.01 to 0.01 ln % min(-1)). The initial viral survival responded to temperature and RH and potentially to EP; the secondary viral survival responded to temperature and potentially to RH. In both phases, survival of the virus was not significantly affected by AH. These findings suggest that long-distance transmission of airborne virus is more likely to occur at 20°C than at 10°C or 30°C and that current Gumboro vaccination by wet aerosolization in poultry industry is not very effective due to the fast initial decay.
authors.affiliation: Wageningen UR Livestock Research, Lelystad, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Andre J A
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Aarnink
authors.forename: Remco
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dijkman
authors.forename: Teun
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fabri
authors.forename: Mart C M
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: de Jong
authors.forename: Peter W G
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Groot Koerkamp
mesh_terms: D000391:Air Microbiology; D003890:Desiccation; D006813:Humidity; D007243:Infectious bursal disease virus / Q000502:physiology*; D050296:Microbial Viability; D013696:Temperature; D038301:Virus Inactivation