Summer has come early this year, and with it the usual discomfort for people prone to allergies.

Associate Professor Kadriya Ibragimova (Department of Bioecology) and her students have been conducting dusting research for six years. When the active blossoming period starts, large volumes of pollen rise up to travel significant distances, and much of it ends up in people’s respiratory tracts, which leads to rhinitis and conjunctivitis.

Plant allergens fall into three major categories – trees, cereals, and weeds.

According to Dr. Ibragimova, pollen is analyzed to determine its related species and volume in 1 cubic meter of air. Thanks to this, a dusting calendar is created jointly by Kazan Federal University and Kazan Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

In order of dusting, the first are alder and hazel, then birch, then oak and linden, then cereals and weeds. Some fungi are also allergenic, for instance, Cladosporium and Alternaria. Trees usually dust in April and May, cereals and grass – in June to August, and weeds – in autumn.

The maximum concentration of birch pollen was registered in late April and amounted to 4,077 particles per 1 cubic meter, which is significantly higher than the general “allergy threshold” of 1,000.

Source text: Rufina Gimaletdinova

Photo: Maxim Zaretsky

Translation: Yury Nurmeev