Interplay Between Air Travel, Genome Integrity, and COVID-19 Risk vis-a-vis Flight Crew.
Front Public Health
; 8: 590412, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1004711
ABSTRACT
During air travel, flight crew (flight attendants, pilots) can be exposed to numerous flight-related environmental DNA damaging agents that may be at the root of an excess risk of cancer and other diseases. This already complex mix of exposures is now joined by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The complex exposures experienced during air travel present a challenge to public health research, but also provide an opportunity to consider new strategies for understanding and countering their health effects. In this article, we focus on threats to genomic integrity that occur during air travel and discuss how these threats and our ability to respond to them may influence the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of range of severity of the symptoms. We also discuss how the virus itself may lead to compromised genome integrity. We argue that dauntingly complex public health problems, such as the challenge of protecting flight crews from COVID-19, must be met with interdisciplinary research teams that include epidemiologists, engineers, and mechanistic biologists.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
DNA Damage
/
Occupational Exposure
/
Genome
/
Disease Resistance
/
Air Travel
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
English
Journal:
Front Public Health
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Fpubh.2020.590412
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