Influenza Virus Transmission Is Dependent on Relative Humidity and Temperature

By Anice C. Lowen, S. Mubareka, J. Steel, P. Palese. PLoS Pathogens, 2007

1,627 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using the guinea pig as a model host, we show that aerosol spread of influenza virus is dependent upon both ambient relative humidity and temperature. Twenty experiments performed at relative humidities from 20% to 80% and 5 °C, 20 °C, or 30 °C indicated that both cold and dry conditions favor transmission. The relationship between transmission via aerosols and relative humidity at 20 °C is similar to that previously reported for the stability of influenza viruses (except at high relative humidity, 80%), implying that the effects of humidity act largely at the level of the virus particle. For infected guinea pigs housed at 5 °C, the duration of peak shedding was approximately 40 h longer than that of animals housed at 20 °C; this increased shedding likely accounts for the enhanced transmission seen at 5 °C. To investigate the mechanism permitting prolonged viral growth, expression levels in the upper respiratory tract of several innate immune mediators were determined. Innate responses proved to be comparable between animals housed at 5 °C and 20 °C, suggesting that cold temperature (5 °C) does not impair the innate immune response in this system. Although the seasonal epidemiology of influenza is well characterized, the underlying reasons for predominant wintertime spread are not clear. We provide direct, experimental evidence to support the role of weather conditions in the dynamics of influenza and thereby address a long-standing question fundamental to the understanding of influenza epidemiology and evolution.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Modeling and Simulation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1ad532cc4b612821e0863c129f19e2d9e47a4389

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Citations in the corpus

The effect of environmental parameters on the survival of airborne infectious agents (2009, methodology): “More recently, using individually caged, separated guinea pigs as both the source and detector of transmitted influenza infection, Lowen et al. (2007) demonstrated that influenza transmits through the air most readily in cold, dry conditions, which supports these earlier in vitro experimental…”
Influenza A viruses: new research developments (2011, background): “Dry, cold, wintery conditions appear to contribute to the efficient transmission and spread of influenza viruse”
Absolute humidity modulates influenza survival, transmission, and seasonality (2009, methodology): “1 are based on laboratory data using a guinea pig host animal model (8, 11).”
Transmission of Influenza Virus in a Mammalian Host Is Increased by PB2 Amino Acids 627K or 627E/701N (2009, methodology): “The rPan99 wild-type virus transmitted to all eight exposed guinea pigs (Figure 4A), as expected based on previous results with the nonrecombinant Pan99 virus [7,22].”
Aerosol transmission of influenza A virus: a review of new studies (2009, background): “Analysing the data from experiments on transmission of influenza between guinea pigs (Lowen et al. 2007, 2008), Shaman and Kohn showed a better statistical correlation with vapour pressure compared with RH; a similar re-analysis of the data from Harper (1961) on infectivity decay in aerosolized…”
Effects of temperature and humidity on the daily new cases and new deaths of COVID-19 in 166 countries (2020, positive): “Second, the moisture in the exhaled bioaerosols evaporates rapidly in low relative humidity, forming droplet nuclei that remain in the air for longer, thereby increasing the likelihood of pathogen transmission (Lowen et al., 2007; Tellier, 2006).”
Impact of climate change on human infectious diseases: Empirical evidence and human adaptation. (2016, background): “explain the observed effects of relative humidity on air-borne disease transmission (Lowen et al., 2007).”
Seasonality of Respiratory Viral Infections. (2020, background): “One possible explanation of this result could be the reduced mucociliary clearance (MCC) and increased stability of virion remaining on the upper respiratory mucosa at 5°C (52).”
Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths (2020, background): “influenza virus to survive longer outside the body than under warmer conditions [49], [50], [51].”
Effects of temperature variation and humidity on the death of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China (2020, positive): “Breathing dry air could cause epithelial damage and/or reduction of mucociliary clearance, and then lead to render the host more susceptible to respiratory virus infection; The formation of droplet nuclei is essential to transmission, but exhaled respiratory droplets settle very rapidly at high humi”
Absolute Humidity and the Seasonal Onset of Influenza in the Continental United States (2010, methodology): “(A) Log-linear regression of guinea pig airborne influenza virus transmission data [14,15] on specific humidity (a measure of AH); (B) log-linear regression of 1-h influenza virus survival data [28] on specific humidity; (C) functional relationship between R0(t) and q(t) per Equation 4; (D) 1972–200”