Risks of Infection with SARS-CoV-2 Due to Contaminated Surfaces: A Scoping Review

Marjan Mohamadi, Awa Babington-Ashaye, Agnès Lefort and Antoine Flahault
Additional contact information
Marjan Mohamadi: Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Awa Babington-Ashaye: Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Agnès Lefort: Service de Médecine Interne, Hôpital Beaujon, Clichy and IAME, UMR1137, INSERM and Université de Paris, 75006 Paris, France
Antoine Flahault: Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: The COVID-19 outbreak is a global health concern. Understanding the transmission modes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is key to limit the spread of the pandemic. A lack of knowledge about the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and infection through contaminated surfaces is noticeable and recent studies have stated conflicting findings. This scoping review aims to understand the risks of contaminations via fomites better. Relevant publications were selected through Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Medline, and Cochrane Library, with related keywords. PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed. Out of the 565 articles found, exclusion criteria were applied, duplicates removed, and a total of 25 articles were finally included in the study. The included documents were assessed by the contamination risk: “low” (37.5%), “high” (16.7%), “plausible” (8.3%), “unlikely” (8.3%) risk, and “insufficient evidence” (29.2%). Research in hospital settings was found as the main setting in the reviewed papers, which precisely indicated the risk of contaminated surfaces. This scoping review underscores the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection via contaminated surfaces assessed as low in the majority of the reviewed articles. Further evaluation of the risk of the virus transmission by fomites and providing adequate information on its infectivity via contaminated surfaces in real-life conditions is essential.

Keywords: COVID-19; fomites; contaminated surfaces; transmission; SARS-CoV-2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11019/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11019/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11019-:d:660583

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().