Experimental Air-Borne Infection

Experimental Air-Borne Infection

Details methods and results from a cloud chamber project at Camp Detrick, MD. Authors study the properties of two non-pathogenic bacteria, four pathogenic bacteria, and three pathogenic viruses. Stability to atomization was measured in the cloud chamber, and lethality/infectivity was measured through impact on respiratory inhalation in lab animals.

1947

Infectivity, stability, and lethality are essential to a pathogen's propensity for epidemicity. The pathogens were thus ranked according to "stability-infectivity" and "stability-lethality" indexes (# of organisms/virions per animal that must be sprayed to produce infection/death in 50% of hosts). Viruses were unable to be in terms of infectivity/lethality because they didn't know PPU. B. suis had the highest stability-infectivity ranking while M. pseudomallei had the highest stability-lethality ranking. Respiratory infection was determined to be less effective than other routes of infection.