RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Survey of Fungal Contamination in the Air Flowing Out of Air Conditioners (Coolers) in a Car
Shima Parsay1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 14
First Page: 581
Last Page: 585
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-14-581
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502114010581
Article History:
Received Date: 16/3/2021Revision Received Date: 20/8/2021
Acceptance Date: 21/9/2021
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Fungi are among the most important microorganisms in the air. The air conditioner (cooler) in a car can be an important reservoir for infectious agents, especially fungal species. The present study aimed to measure the fungal contamination in the air flowing out of air conditioners.
Objective:
In this study 138 cars including 69 Iranian-made cars and 69 cars made by foreign companies were examined.
Methods:
The plating technique was used. In this study, in each car, 2 plates were placed for 5 minutes when the air conditioner was on and also 2 plates were placed for 5 minutes when the air conditioner was off.
Results:
A total of 2442 colonies were isolated. The most common isolated fungi were Cladosporium spp. (25.55%), Penicillium spp. (6.14%) and Aspergillus niger (3.03%). The highest number of isolated fungal elements was observed in the Iranian-made cars during summer season (P-value<0.05). Furthermore, the growth rate of colonies on the plates placed on the front and rear seats of cars did not vary considerably (P-value > 0.05).
Conclusion:
Air conditioners of Iranian-made cars can be an important source for fungal transmission to the human respiratory system that is important, especially in susceptible people to allergic diseases and patients with immunodeficiency.