BALTIMORE — “Is influenza airborne?"
That is the question scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Public Health are teaming up to try to answer, but they need your help.
Starting Friday, they will be recruiting people who recently caught the flu in the DMV area to stay at the Lord Baltimore hotel for a few days.
The purpose is to give a group of healthy people who signed up the flu.
During a person's time there, they will be in a quarantined room, except for group activities with healthy participants in a quarantined common area.
"We were basically watching and monitoring for transmission of influenza," says Dr. Wilbur Chen.
They will also have to sit in an exhale breath examiner machine.
“So it's kind of like a reverse funnel, and they’ll breathe into it, and we’ll collect their exhaled breath," says Dr. Chen.
Once the breath is collected, the scientist will test for the size, type, and amount of particles that are spread when people exhale.
This will help them determine if and how much the virus is spreading through the air.
“It will be conducted all the way through; I think it's the 16th of January, then we will have a second group of people, which will be in later January, and we’ll have a third group, which will be in February," he says.
Before you can sign up, you have to test positive for the flu virus.
“They’ll also want to make sure they don’t have COVID, RSV, or some of these other respiratory viruses that are also circulating, because you won’t be eligible if you have one of those other viruses. We're really only looking for influenza at this point," says Dr. Chen.
The biggest question is: when will the participants get the $1,900 paycheck?
“It probably takes about 6 to 8 weeks or so; sometimes we can expedite it, so sometimes 4 weeks, but again, I don’t want people to think that they are getting a check as they are exiting. I wish it were that fast, but, you know, getting these checks executed takes a bit of time," he says.
One entire floor of the Lord Baltimore Hotel will be quarantined, sanitized, and off-limits to the rest of the hotel during the study.
If you are sick and would like to participate, you can call the university starting Friday at noon.
Call 410-706-8800 to volunteer.
https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/cvd/trials/emit2---donors/
