ARKHANGELSK, July 28. /TASS/. Experts, participating in the Arctic Floating University expedition, tested for the first time in the Arctic a method to search for bacteria in the air near bird nests, Artemy Goncharov, leading the Biological Threats Monitoring Laboratory at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Professor of the Epidemiology, Parasitology and Disinfection Department at the Mechnikov Northwestern State Medical University, told TASS. This way, scientists want to learn whether pathogenic bacteria are able to spread through the air in bird rookeries, and want to be able to predict possible infections' outbreaks.
"In order to study a possible implementation of aerogenic transmission of pathogenic microbiota in seabird colonies, a separate task was to test the method of air sampling from bird rookeries by using a microbiological impactor. We have determined the optimal volume of air intake, which amounted to 5,000 liters," the scientist said.
An impactor is an air intake or sampler that allows experts to collect living microorganisms from the air for further examination. The work was carried out on islands of the Franz Josef Land Archipelago.
The expedition participants established that the coliform bacteria's concentration near large bird colonies reaches a level where there is a possibility of spreading pathogenic or opportunistic bacteria in microbial aerosols formed around bird rookeries.
