Design and Validation with Influenza A Virus of an Aerosol Transmission Chamber for Ferrets

Turgeon, Nathalie; Hamelin, Marie-Ève; Verreault, Daniel; Lévesque, Ariane; Rhéaume, Chantal; Carbonneau, Julie; Checkmahomed, Liva; Girard, Matthieu; Boivin, Guy; Duchaine, Caroline

In all three experiments, influenza A virus was detected from the index ferret (cage one) nasal wash from day 1 to days 6 or 7 (Figure 7) . Nasal washes from ferrets housed in cage two were positive from days 3 or 5 in all three experiments. Influenza virus was detected from nasal washes of the ferret housed in cage three 7 days after the infection of the index ferret in experiment 1, and after 4 days in experiment 3. No virus was detected in the nasal wash of the ferret housed in cage three from experiment 2. In all experiments, airborne influenza virus genome concentrations up to 10 4 genomes/m 3 were detected from cages two and three using the NIOSH two-stage bioaerosol cyclone sampler (Figure 7 ) from day 2 until the end of the experiment.