ReviewThe Journal of infection2008
Inactivation of influenza A viruses in the environment and modes of transmission: a critical review.
Review in The Journal of infection, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 237 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
237 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 492 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global meta-analysis of short-term associations between ambient temperature and pathogen-specific respiratory infections, 2004 to 2023.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Warmer weather unlikely to reduce the COVID-19 transmission: An ecological study in 202 locations in 8 countries.The Science of the total environment · 2021Pooled it
- Transmission routes of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09: analyses of inflight outbreaks.Epidemiology and infection · 2018Pooled it
- Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza - United States, 2017.MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 2017Guideline
- Review Article: Influenza Transmission on Aircraft: A Systematic Literature Review.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2016Pooled it
- Persistence of Low Pathogenic Influenza A Virus in Water: A Systematic Review and Quantitative Meta-Analysis.PloS one · 2016Pooled it
- Hand hygiene and risk of influenza virus infections in the community: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Epidemiology and infection · 2014Pooled it
- Aerosol transmission is an important mode of influenza A virus spread.Nature communications · 2013Trial
- Global status, bias risks, and ecological integration of wild bat and rodent virome research.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Contact behavior and serological evidence of influenza reinfection across three post-COVID-19 pandemic seasons in a nationwide German cohort.Infection · 2026Article
- Rethinking COVID-19 seasonality: A summer respiratory virus in the tropics, contrast to influenza.World journal of virology · 2026Review
- Dairy Sites with Milk Exposure Are Most Likely to Have Detection of Influenza A Virus.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- First report of human infection caused by swine-origin influenza A(H1N2)v virus in mainland China: a confirmed case identified through influenza-like illness surveillance, Kunming (Yunnan), 2025.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Cleaning and Disinfecting Public Transportation Vehicles Against Respiratory Infectious Diseases in Lebanon: A Cross-Sectional Study.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2026Article
- Modeling the effects of meteorological factors and media-driven public awareness on seasonal influenza outbreaks.PloS one · 2026Article
- Size distribution and viral RNA load of influenza virus-laden airborne particles emitted from pigs over the course of an H1N1 infection.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Dairy Environments with Milk Exposure are Most Likely to Have Detection of Influenza A Virus.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Survival and transmission fitness of SARS-CoV-2 over the time-of-flight in an aerosolization chamber.Npj viruses · 2025Article
- School-informed risk calculator tool for reducing the spread of respiratory viral infection among school-aged children.Indoor environments · 2025Article
- Capsid and genome damage are the leading inactivation mechanisms of aerosolized porcine respiratory coronavirus at different relative humidities.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
177 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe relative importance of airborne, droplet and contact transmission of influenza A virus and the efficiency of control measures depends among other factors on the inactivation of viruses in different environmental media.
methodsWe systematically review available information on the environmental inactivation of influenza A viruses and employ information on infectious dose and results from mathematical models to assess transmission modes.
resultsDaily inactivation rate constants differ by several orders of magnitude: on inanimate surfaces and in aerosols daily inactivation rates are in the order of 1-10(2), on hands in the order of 10(3). Influenza virus can survive in aerosols for several hours, on hands for a few minutes. Nasal infectious dose of influenza A is several orders of magnitude larger than airborne infectious dose.
conclusionsThe airborne route is a potentially important transmission pathway for influenza in indoor environments. The importance of droplet transmission has to be reassessed. Contact transmission can be limited by fast inactivation of influenza virus on hands and is more so than airborne transmission dependent on behavioral parameters. However, the potentially large inocula deposited in the environment through sneezing and the protective effect of nasal mucus on virus survival could make contact transmission a key transmission mode.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.