Monitoring of the environmental contamination and exposure risk of COVID-19 in the medical staff of coronavirus referral hospitals in Qom, Iran

COVID-19 is a new infection that first occurred in China and now is spreading worldwide. The disease is considered to be a serious respiratory disease in humans. This study has been designed to assess surface contamination of SARS-CoV-2and exposure risk of the disease in the medical staff of two coronavirus referral hospitals of Qom province, which were dedicated to the admission and treatment of COVID -19 patients.. This study was carried in two steps including analysis of environmental samples and exposure risk assessment of COVID-19. In this study 50 environmental samples were collected from different sites of the hospitals. After extracting RNA, RT- PCR was done for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The results showed that 18% of environmental sites, including elevator buttons (8%), doorknobs (6%) and bed rails (4%) were positive. In the risk assessment process based on according to wear of personal protective equipment, exposed to high touch surfaces, performing hand hygiene, any accident with biological fluid/respiratory secretions, the results indicate that 60.4%, 68.3%, 28.6% and 20.6% health care personal including medical doctors, nurses and assistant nurses have high risk, respectively. In general, implement a plan for monitoring health personnel exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases for respiratory illness including environmental surveillance engineering controls and personal protective equipment recommended.