Hotel Guests Can Leave Behind Cold Germs

[Guest guest]

[Cold germs can survive overnight in a hotel room (or elsewhere, of

course). Wash your hand frequently when you travel, stay at home, go

to the office, etc.)

UVA Researchers Find That Hotel Guests With Colds Can Leave Their

Germs Behind After Checkout

10/1/2006

Source: University of Virginia Health System

A group of researchers led by a team from the University of Virginia

Health System found that adults infected with rhinovirus, the cause

of half of all colds, may contaminate many objects used in daily

life, leaving an infectious gift for others who follow them. The

results of their experiments, conducted in hotel rooms, will be

shared at the 46th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial

Agents and Chemotherapy, in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Sept.

29.

Most are aware that handshaking and other forms of skin to skin

contact can result in catching someone else's cold, but many may

assume that viruses can't live long on hard surfaces in living

environments. Dr. Owen Hendley, professor of pediatrics in the

Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the UVa Health System

who will present the research, cautions that this assumption may not

be completely true.

" To my surprise, in a hotel room occupied overnight by an adult with

a cold, everything from television remote controls, telephones, light

switches and faucets were contaminated with rhinovirus, " said

Hendley.

To begin the study, people with colds were recruited to spend 5 hours

awake in hotel rooms before going to bed and 2 awake hours in their

rooms the next morning. The volunteers had no visitors and were asked

to wash their hands only after using the bathroom. At the time of

check out, participants were asked to identify objects they had

touched. After they left, ten of the touched objects in the subject's

room were tested for the presence of rhinovirus. Thirty five percent

of the objects had residual virus, demonstrating that people with

colds do not have to be present for their germs to linger.

In order to infect an individual, germs must reach the eyes or the

nose, usually by way of a person's own fingers. So researchers then

set out to learn if germs lingering in the environment can make the

leap from surfaces to fingers.

In order to test this leap, researchers invited six of the

participants to return to the hotel several months later. This time,

virus-containing mucus taken at the time of the participants' colds,

which had been stored, was used to contaminate two sets of light

switches, telephone key pads and telephone handsets in two different

rooms. In one room, the mucus was allowed to dry for one hour. In the

second room, the mucus dried overnight. The participants were asked

to dial phone numbers, hold the handsets and flip on light switches

in both rooms. Sixty percent of the contacts with contaminated

objects that dried for an hour resulted in rhinovirus transfer to

fingertips. Thirty-three percent of contacts with objects that dried

overnight resulted in rhinovirus transfer to fingertips.

Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to

detect rhinovirus ribonucleic acid (RNA). The RNA of rhinovirus is

surrounded by proteins that help it bind to other cells. Without a

host cell, the virus cannot replicate, making it even more surprising

that it survived overnight to be detected and transferred.

" While transmission of rhinovirus through dried nasal mucus on

surfaces is not efficient, people still should understand that the

virus remains available for transfer at least one day, " said

Hendley. " The next time you stay in a hotel, knowing that rhinovirus

may be left from the last guest, you may wonder how meticulous the

clean up crew was in their work. "

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