Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques 2021, Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages: 178-182 178 Monitoring of the Environmental Contamination and Exposure Risk of COVID-19 in the Medical Staff of Coronavirus Referral Hospitals in Qom, Iran Saeed Shams 1 , Rahim Aali 2 , Mehdi. Safa 2 , Yadollah. Ghafuri 2* , Zahra. Atafar 3 1 Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran 2 Research Center for Environmental Pollutants, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran 3 Social Development & Health Promotion Research Center, Health Institute, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran Received: 14/08/2020 Accepted: 25/10/2020 Published: 20/03/2021 Abstract COVID-19 is a new infection that first occurred in China and now is spreading worldwide. The disease is considered to be a serious respiratory disease in humans. This study has been designed to assess surface contamination of SARS-CoV-2and exposure risk of the disease in the medical staff of two coronavirus referral hospitals of Qom province, which were dedicated to the admission and treatment of COVID -19 patients.. This study was carried in two steps including analysis of environmental samples and exposure risk assessment of COVID-19. In this study 50 environmental samples were collected from different sites of the hospitals. After extracting RNA, RT- PCR was done for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The results showed that 18% of environmental sites, including elevator buttons (8%), doorknobs (6%) and bed rails (4%) were positive. In the risk assessment process based on according to wear of personal protective equipment, exposed to high touch surfaces, performing hand hygiene, any accident with biological fluid/respiratory secretions, the results indicate that 60.4 %, 68.3%, 28.6% and 20.6% health care personal including medical doctors, nurses and assistant nurses have high risk, respectively. In general, implement a plan for monitoring health personnel exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases for respiratory illness including environmental surveillance engineering controls and personal protective equipment recommended. Keywords: COVID-19; Environment; Risk; Exposure; Hospitals 1 Introduction 1 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease affected by a new coronavirus. The disease causes flu-like respiratory illness with different symptoms such as cough, fever, shortness of breath, and breathing difficulties, etc. (1, 2). In more severe cases, the disease can causes multiple organ failures and even death. This virus is the same member of the coronavirus family that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) reported in China in 2003 and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The initial cases of the COVID-19 have been linked to a live seafood market in Wuhan, China, December 2019 that was originated from an animal source and adapted to other variants as it crossed the species barrier to infect humans (3). Following the guidance of WHO on infection prevention and control strategies, it is important to ensure that environmental cleaning and disinfection procedures are consistently and correctly followed. Cleaning environmental surfaces with water and detergents and applying commonly used hospital-level disinfectants (such as sodium hypochlorite) are known as effective and sufficient procedures. Medical devices, equipment, laundries, food service utensils, and medical wastes should be managed in accordance with safe routine procedures (4, 5). This study was designed to assess the extent and persistence of surface Corresponding author: Yadollah. Ghafuri, Research Center for Environmental Pollutants, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran. Tel: +98 25 32852740 E-mail: yadollahghafuri@yahoo.com contamination of COVID-19 and exposure risk of the disease in the medical staff of coronavirus admission hospitals in Qom province. 2 Material and Methods 2.1 Study setting The study was planned in Qom, as the first city that identified the disease in in the central part of Iran, with about 1.3 million residents, Two coronavirus referral hospitals of Qom, Kamkar and Forghani hospitals, which dedicated to the admission and treatment of COVID -19 patients, were included in this study. Their location is showed in Figure 1. 2.2 Collection of environmental samples Fifty environmental samples including Ambulance patient carrier, Corridor and patient entrance, Admission and Waiting room, Patient room…were collected using sterile swabs with synthetic tips and plastic shafts. Each swab was placed into a tube containing 2 ml of the viral transport medium (VTM) that was labeled and and putted in a self-sealing bag. Then, the outside of the sealed bag was disinfected by 5% hypochlorite solution. In each sampling round a set of control samples also were collected. The first set of control samples were handled in the same way as the environmental samples from the potentially contaminated area, including opening the package J. Environ. Treat. Tech. ISSN: 2309-1185 Journal web link: http://www.jett.dormaj.com https://doi.org/10.47277/JETT/9(1)182