SGER: Bioaerosol Exposure Hazard Assessment to Emergency Response and Reclamation Personnel

0553213赫尔南德斯的最新研究证实，即使在娱乐用水设施(如热水浴缸和治疗池)相对静止的情况下，也可以将水中的微生物雾化。微生物从水到空气的分离得到了普通附属物的加强，这些附属物被设计成将小气泡带到高速水流中，以及从系统中快速推动水通过空气，用于应急响应和土木工程应用：消防、冷却、曝气、粉尘消减，以及水在安全壳屏障上的大量流动。卡特里娜飓风已经并将继续需要大量受洪水影响的水通过空中推进，以达到这些目的。鉴于这些洪水含有水传播的病原体，而且在紧急响应和随后的清理行动中，洪水中的微生物肯定会被雾化，这一地区可能存在独特的空气传播健康风险。虽然这种基于吸入的暴露风险与9/11事件(生物而不是无机)有关的风险性质不同，就像曼哈顿市中心一样，但这一事件的发生和规模很可能导致大范围环境并发症的空气质量严重恶化，由于迫在眉睫的生存优先事项，这种并发症在很大程度上被忽视了。就像9·11事件及之后接近世贸中心遗址的地区一样，糟糕的空气质量可能会导致急性和慢性健康影响。然而，与曼哈顿不同的是，新奥尔良洪泛区的生物气溶胶暴露风险实际上可能会随着时间的推移而增加，并对消防、工程和其他填海人员的健康构成重大威胁，特别是在故意将洪水水流引入空气的设施附近。针对这种情况，这项研究的目的将是监测在这种附属物附近形成的气溶胶中微生物的身份、分布和丰度，并使用广泛接受的显微镜和遗传学方法将它们的生态与直接来源水中的微生物进行比较。将特别注意查明和量化这些气雾剂中的潜在病原体。

0553213 Hernandez Late breaking research has confirmed that waterborne microorganisms can be aerosolized from recreational water facilities, such as hot tubs and therapy pools even when such waters are relatively quiescent. The partitioning of microorganisms from water to air is enhanced by common appurtenances, which are designed to entrain small air bubbles in high velocity water streams, and from systems, which rapidly propel water through air for emergency response and civil engineering applications: fire-fighting, cooling, aeration, dust abatement, and the bulk movement of water over containment barriers. Hurricane Katrina has, and will continue to require, the propulsion of large quantities of flood-impacted waters through air for these purposes. Given that these flood waters contain waterborne pathogens, and that microorganisms will certainly be aerosolized from the flood waters during emergency response and subsequent clean-up operations, a unique airborne health risk likely exists in this area. While this inhalation based exposure risk is of a different nature than that associated with 9/11 (biological rather than inorganic) much like central Manhattan, the onset and magnitude of this event has likely contributed to seriously deteriorating the air quality over a wide area of an environmental complication which has largely been ignored because of immediate survival priorities. Like the area near ground zero on and after 9/11, poor air quality may induce both acute and chronic health effects. Unlike Manhattan however, the bioaerosol exposure risk in the New Orleans flood zone may in fact increase over time, and pose a significant health threat to firefighting, engineering and other reclamation personnel, particularly near appurtenances that purposely introduce flood water streams into air. In response to this condition, the purpose of this study will be to monitor the identity, distribution and abundance of microorganisms in aerosols created near such appurtenances, and compare their ecology to that in the immediate source water using widely accepted microscopic and genetic methods. Special attention will be paid to identifying and quantifying potential pathogens in these aerosols.