Indoor air quality and diversity of fungi inside and outside residences of children with a history of allergy in Cuba

Abstract

Several investigations suggest that the exposure to fungal allergens during childhood may increase the risk of sensitisation in children genetically predisposed to allergy. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality and diversity of fungal propagules in indoor air, specifically in the bedrooms of children with a family history of allergy. The indoor and outdoor air was sampled from 44 bedrooms of children with a family history of allergy during the years 2018 and 2019 in Havana, Cuba. Inside the bedrooms, the presence of humidity problems, visible fungal growth, and the quality of ventilation was examined, while the values of temperature and relative humidity were recorded. Moreover, a distribution analysis of the genera detected was carried out and the Sørensen coefficient of similarity was calculated. In addition, the relationship between the outdoor and indoor air concentrations of each residence was determined. The concentrations of fungal propagules in the indoor air of the bedrooms were between 20 and 1330 colony-forming unit (CFU)/m³. According to the analysed limit values, 18 bedrooms can be classified as having poor indoor air quality. Cladosporium, Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Curvularia were the most frequent genera of the 19 identified in the study. There was a similarity between the indoor and outdoor air mycobiota in 15.9% of the rooms. The detection of these allergenic fungal genera is an alert for children in the sampled homes, mainly for those that were classified as poor indoor air quality according to the examined standards.

Keywords:

• Fungi
• allergies
• indoor environments

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the families that allowed the sampling in their homes. To Ramón Suárez-Medina, from the National Institute of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, Havana, Cuba, and the HINASIC (National History of Wheezing in Cuba) Study Group project. In addition, to the health personnel who accompanied us to the visits. To Elizabeth Esponda Betancourt for her grammar and style corrections from the Faculty Foreign Languages, University of Havana, Havana, Cuba.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).