[White Paper] Best practices for air sampling in veterinary environments with Coriolis

The quality of indoor air dramatically affects the health of animals and humans during livestock production. Large amounts of airborne microorganisms are emitted from animal production. Airborne transmission has been suspected of being responsible for epidemics of highly infectious diseases in livestock production. The presence of these emitted microorganisms in the air is also suspected to be a source of potential respiratory problems from various allergenic, and immunologic agents, and cause airborne infections for workers within confined animal farms.

In CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), the environment is an important potential source of contamination for animals as well as for workers. Monitoring the air quality is crucial to define specific actions based on the presence of potential pathogens. Being able to determine and characterize the presence of these potential pathogens in aerosols by air sampling is essential to improve the protection of workers. Bertin Technologies has developed air samplers that can be used to monitor, detect, and characterize airborne pathogens in the vicinity of livestock.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has recently been increasing concern about the role of wild animals in the epidemiology of most zoonoses, as they can act as major reservoirs for the transmission of zoonotic agents to domestic animals and humans. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of monitoring the air quality to prevent future pandemics caused by the spread of pathogens from animals to humans.

In this white paper, we will show how air samples collected with the Coriolis® µ can be used with different methods for characterization and determination of pathogens present in the environment. In particular, Coriolis® µ air samples indicated that the Swine Influenza A virus genome can be detected and also confirmed that this virus can be transmitted through aerosols.