Climate, environment and infectious diseases

Respiratory infections such as COVID-19 are often transmitted via direct inhalation of respiratory droplets or contact with contaminated surfaces. Airborne transmission via the spread of smaller particles (“aerosols”) from exhaled air is also possible especially indoors.  Many pathogens show environmental resistance that makes transmission via air, water, waste and food plausible.

A better understanding of environmental transmission routes and interactions with other exposures, such as temperature and humidity, can improve the management of infectious diseases in changing environmental conditions.

This project aims to investigate how coronaviruses and other infectious diseases are transmitted in indoor and outdoor environments, and what the mechanisms, carriers, range transmission, and seasonality are.

Funded by: Dyson 

Project team: Sotiris Vardoulakis, Daniela Espinoza-Oyarce, Kinley Wangdi and Enembe Okokon

Vardoulakis S., Espinoza Oyarce D.A., Donner E., 2022. Transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in public washrooms: a systematic review. Science of the Total Environment 803, 149932.

Vardoulakis S., Sheel M., Lal A., Gray D., 2020. COVID-19 environmental transmission and preventive public health measures. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health 44(5), 333-335.