Desert bacteria rides dust plumes to the Himalayas, says study

• Researchers from Bose Institute have identified airborne pathogens carried along with elevated desert dust plumes from western side of India to the top of the Eastern Himalayas that are associated with respiratory and skin diseases.

• The Himalayan hill-top atmosphere is widely considered beneficial for human health.

• Vulnerability in these regions have been found to be intensified by cold climatic conditions & hypoxia. 

• There is limited evidence connecting airborne microbial exposure to respiratory disease outcomes in high-altitude Himalayan populations and the microbiological dimension of transboundary dust transport remains poorly understood. 

• This gap in knowledge prompted researchers to take up the present study.

• Bose Institute is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

• Through over two years of continuous monitoring of dust storms rising from the arid regions of western India, the researchers found that powerful dust storms can travel hundreds of kilometers, crossing densely populated and polluted Indo-Gangetic Plain before finally settling over Himalayan hilltops.

• They carry airborne bacteria, including pathogens that can affect human health.

• In addition to respiratory and skin diseases due to the transported pathogens, vertical uplift injects locally sourced pathogens into high-altitude atmosphere, where they mix with long-range travellers arriving from afar. 

• Together, they reshape the bacterial community floating above the Himalayas, contributing to gastrointestinal infections as well.

• The results quantitatively demonstrate the perturbation of atmospheric bacterial communities over Himalayas due to horizontal long-range dust transport and vertical uplifting of foothill air pollution, which has direct implications on public health.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)