Airborne Transmission of Communicable Infection — The Elusive Pathway

Abstract

What does it mean to describe an infection as having airborne transmission, and what are the clinical implications? There is a fitting symmetry between the report by Yu et al. about airborne transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in this issue of the Journal (pages 1731–1739) and John Snow's investigation of a cholera epidemic 150 years ago. Snow's independent investigation tested the hypothesis that cholera was waterborne. The official investigation by the General Board of Health in England, however, concluded that transmission in the epidemic was airborne, caused by nocturnal vapors emanating from the Thames River — a . . .