Abstract
In urban environments, people spend about 90% of their time indoors, where strong indicators of air-borne contaminants have been found. Currently, there are no reports on the fungal presence and distribution in the air of hotel bedrooms. In this study, we assessed the presence of airborne fungi in bedrooms from three hotels and correlated with room characteristics. We sampled 100 L (L) of air from hotels in Nuevo León, Mexico, then fungi colony forming units (CFU) were measured and identification was made based on morphological features. Variables considered were the presence of carpet, number of beds, cleaning status for the room and floor number. Penicillium, Cladosporium and Aspergillus exhibited the highest CFU concentration and frequency. A slight tendency was observed towards lower fungi concentrations when rooms had been cleaned before sampling. Statistical differences were found between rooms with carpet vs. no carpet, and one vs. two beds. Furthermore, a correlation between floor number and fungi concentration was observed with correspondence to the hotels’ room assignment protocol. These findings offer new variables to take into consideration when designing and implementing preventive or corrective sanitization procedures to improve their efficiency and could be relevant for hotel bedrooms as well as any other type of room.
Highlights
Indoor air quality is especially important for human health since people spend about
Bioaerosols are a main component of indoor airborne contaminants, which comprise microorganisms and can be generated from various natural and anthropogenic sources
A great amount of information has been published about indoor fungi, there are currently no official standards to regulate the presence of fungi on indoor air, mostly due to the lack of correlation between precise levels of fungal concentrations and health effects
Summary
Indoor air quality is especially important for human health since people spend about. Bioaerosols are a main component of indoor airborne contaminants, which comprise microorganisms and can be generated from various natural and anthropogenic sources. Another study was conducted in a hospital from Xalapa City in Mexico, in which different surfaces were sampled, showing the predominant presence of genera from Cladosporium, Microsporum, Aspergillus and Penicillium; they concluded that all areas of the hospital have pathogenic fungi and these were collected from surfaces, not air, highlighting the lack of information regarding air fungi in our country [11]. We evaluated for the first time, three hotels in Nuevo León, Mexico, aiming for a better understanding of the indoor fungal presence in this type of building and generating advice for each hotel’s staff afterwards, both related to the customers safety and the health of the workers
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