The DOI matches its Crossref record; the references it cites are not checked yet.
The Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission
Abstract
For an infectious disease such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to spread, contact needs to be established between an infected host and a susceptible one. In a range of populations and infectious diseases, peer-to-peer contact modes involve complex interactions of a pathogen with a fluid phase, such as isolated complex fluid droplets or a multiphase cloud of droplets. This is true for exhalations including coughs or sneezes in humans and animals, bursting bubbles leading to micron-sized droplets in a range of indoor and outdoor settings, or impacting raindrops and airborne pathogens in foliar diseases transferring pathogens from water to air via splashes. Our mechanistic understanding of how pathogens actually transfer from one host or reservoir to the next remains woefully limited, with the global consequences that we are all experiencing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This review discusses the emergent area of the fluid dynamics of disease transmission. It highlights a new frontier and the rich multiscale fluid physics, from interfacial to multiphase and complex flows, that govern contact between an infected source and a susceptible target in a range of diseases.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Citations
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 119 · Cited by 366
Research works printed but not linked: 30
- 2019, Cancer facts & figures 2019
- 2020, Coronavirus ‘could infect 60% of global population if unchecked’, The Guardian
- 2018, How diseases and epidemics move through a breath of air
- 2020, Turbulent gas clouds and respiratory pathogen emissions: potential implications for reducing transmission of COVID-19, JAMA, 323, 1837
- 2013, Drops and bubbles in the environment, 427
- 2017a, Seasonal flu death estimate increases worldwide
- 2019, Middle east repsiratory syndrome (MERS)—transmission
- 1945, The numbers and the sites of origin of the droplets expelled during expiratory activities, Edinb. Med. J., 52, 385
- 1946, The size and the duration of air-carriage of respiratory droplets and droplet-nuclei, J. Hyg., 44, 471
- 1897, Über Luftinfection, Zeit. Hyg. Infektionskrankh., 25, 179
- 2020, Up to 20% of hospital patients with covid-19 caught it at hospital, The Guardian
- 1964, The transmission of respiratory infections, Proc. R. Soc. Med., 57, 221
- 1995, Bioaerosols: introduction, retrospect and prospect, 5
- 2006, Avian flu update
- 2016, Research trends in biological fluid dynamics: a USNCTAM report on recent trends in mechanics
- 2020, They say coronavirus isn't airborne—but it's definitely borne by air, Wired
- 1876, Untersuchungen über Bakterien: V. Die Aetiologie der Milzbrandkrankheit, begründet auf der Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus anthracis, Beitr. Biol. Pflanzen, 2, 277
- 2020, Great famine, Encyclopædia Britannica
- 2020, This 3-D simulation shows why social distancing is so important, New York Times
- 1861, Memoire sur les corpuscules organisés qui existent dans l'atmosphère; examen de la doctrine de générations spontanées, Ann. Sci. Nat., 16, 5
- 1910, The Prevention of Malaria
- 2007, The SARS Commission Final Report, Vol. 3: Spring of Fear
- 2002, Multi-phase plumes in uniform, stratified, and flowing environments, 85
- 1951, The role of particle size in experimental airborne infection, Am. J. Hyg., 53, 337
- 1970, Bernoulli, Daniel, 2, 36
- 2018, Biological and particulate contaminants in interfaces
- 2020a, Growth and breakup of ligaments in unsteady fragmentation, J. Fluid Mech.
- 2020b, Non-Galilean Taylor–Culick's law governs sheet dynamics in unsteady fragmentation, J. Fluid Mech.
- 1934, On air-born infection. Study II. Droplet and droplet nuclei, Am. J. Epidemiol., 20, 611
- 2018, Global Health Observatory (GHO) data: tuberculosis (TB)
Metadata
- Authors
- Bourouiba, L.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bourouiba, Lydia
- ORCID
- Bourouiba, Lydia
- Venue
- Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2021-01-05
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 473-508
- ISSN
- 0066-4189 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-4479
- OpenAlex
- W3092368927
- Cited by
- 366
- References
- 119
- Citations by year
- 2026: 29 · 2025: 73 · 2024: 60 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 78 · 2021: 58
- FWCI
- 7.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Infection Control and Ventilation
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer
- Physical Sciences › Chemical Engineering › Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes › Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, droplet transmission, multiphase flow, complex fluids, coughing and sneezing, bubble bursting, raindrop impact, foliar diseases, airborne pathogens, interfacial flow, contact transmission
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
