FLICKR, CDC GLOBALEbola can persist on stainless steel, plastic, and Tyvek, a material used in suits worn by researchers and health-care workers to protect themselves from the virus, for more than a week, depending on conditions, according to a study published last month (April 30) in Emerging Infectious Diseases. In a climate-controlled setting, such as a hospital, Ebola lived for 11 days on Tyvek, eight days on plastic, and four days on stainless steel; in hot, humid conditions, typical in West Africa, the virus survived up to three days on Tyvek, and less time on the other two materials.
“Given the unprecedented [number] of health-care professionals who became infected with Ebola virus during the outbreak, we are trying to elucidate all potential routes of transmission and potential for persistence of the virus,” coauthor Vincent Munster, chief of the Virus Ecology Unit at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, told LiveScience. “We found that [the Ebola virus] can persist on surfaces.”
The study also found that Ebola can live in water for up to six days, in dried blood for up to five days, and in liquid blood outside the body for up to two weeks. These results emphasize that “appropriate measures should be taken to safely dispose of these samples,” Munster told LiveScience.
Meanwhile, new evidence also suggests that the virus can survive in ...
