To What Extent Can Viable Bacteria in Atmospheric Aerosols be Dangerous for Humans?

Abstract

AbstractMulti‐year monitoring of atmospheric bioaerosol in Southwestern Siberia revealed the presence of a large number of various culturable microorganisms. It is known that viable microorganisms can cause directly or provoke different human diseases. It's very difficult to evaluate the danger represented by each microorganism to man directly. Therefore, a relatively simple method is required for evaluation of potential danger represented to man by the whole assembly of culturable microorganisms in an atmospheric aerosol sample. For bacteria, the method can be based on a number of individual characteristics of each microorganism determined in the course of biochemical and other test required for identification of the detected bacterium, and a number of other tests. It is proposed to classify the measured individual characteristics of bacteria under four groups of indices responsible for: (i) potential pathogenicity for man; (ii) the numbers of bacteria in the sample; (iii) resistance to unfavorable environmental factors; (iv) drug resistance of bacteria. Each of four groups of indices is numerically evaluated by a certain integral index, which quantitatively reflects the contribution of experimentally determined characteristics of bacteria. Expert evaluation of the contribution of each characteristic of microorganisms to the corresponding group of indices is performed. The generalized index of potential danger of culturable bacteria in atmospheric aerosols for human health is presented as the product of four integral indices summarizing the normalized individual integral indices for all bacteria detected in the sample. The work presents the results of measuring the variations of all the above indices for atmospheric air samples collected during one year.