Airborne biological hazards and urban transport infrastructure: current challenges and future directions.
Exposure to airborne biological hazards in an ever expanding urban transport infrastructure and highly diverse mobile population is of growing concern, in terms of both public health and biosecurity. The existing policies and practices on design, construction and operation of these infrastructures may have severe implications for airborne disease transmission, particularly, in the event of a pandemic or intentional release of biological of agents. This paper reviews existing knowledge on airborne disease transmission in different modes of transport, highlights the factors enhancing the vulnerability of transport infrastructures to airborne disease transmission, discusses the potential protection measures and identifies the research gaps in order to build a bioresilient transport infrastructure. The unification of security and public health research, inclusion of public health security concepts at the design and planning phase, and a holistic system approach involving all the stakeholders over the life cycle of transport infrastructure hold the key to mitigate the challenges posed by biological hazards in the twenty-first century transport infrastructure.
School of Energy, Environment and Agrifood, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK. z.a.nasar@cranfield.ac.uk.
Zaheer Ahmad
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9953-7144
ZA
Nasir
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Luiza Cintra
LC
Campos
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Nicola
N
Christie
School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.
Ian
I
Colbeck
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D014186:Transportation; D014504:Urban Health
D000393:Air Pollutants
Biological hazards; Protection measures; Transport; Vulnerability