Cough aerosol in healthy participants: fundamental knowledge to optimize droplet-spread infectious respiratory disease management

45 healthy non-smokers participated in the open bench study by giving their best effort cough. A laser diffraction system was used to obtain accurate, time-dependent, quantitative measurements of the size and number of droplets expelled by the cough aerosol.Voluntary coughs generated droplets ranging from 0.1 - 900 microns in size. Droplets of less than one-micron size represent 97% of the total number of measured droplets contained in the cough aerosol. Age, sex, weight, height and corporal mass have no statistically significant effect on the aerosol composition in terms of size and number of droplets.We have developed a standard human cough aerosol model. We have quantitatively characterized the pattern, size, and number of droplets present in the most important mode of person-to-person transmission of IRD: the cough bioaerosol. Small size droplets (< 1 μm) predominated the total number of droplets expelled when coughing. The cough aerosol is the single source of direct, indirect and/or airborne transmission of respiratory infections like the Influenza A H1N1 virus.Open bench, Observational, Cough, Aerosol studySince the early 1990s the World Health Organization (WHO), along with other governmental and non-governmental agencies, has issued multiple requests to the scientific community. These requests have been for contributions in the development and design of novel approaches, methods, and technologies to optimize management of infectious respiratory diseases (IRD) in anticipation of new and re-emerging transmissible respiratory diseases, such as the Influenza Pandemic and Tuberculosis (TB).The WHO reported that around one third of the world's population are carriers of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that leads to active TB. Annually, nine (9) million new cases of active TB are reported around the world in young and middle aged adults, with about 1.7 million deaths in 2009.Currently, the Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan developed by the WHO consider