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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Everyone knows to steer clear of coughers and sneezers if they want to avoid getting a cold. You should also beware of doorknobs and remote controls!
New research reveals germs that cause colds will stick around on surfaces like TV remote controls and faucets for hours, even days after someone with a cold has handled them.
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Investigators from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, report you can catch a cold simply by touching a surface touched by someone who is sick. The researchers studied 15 people with colds who stayed in hotel rooms overnight. All of the participants blew their noses upon entering the rooms, then went about their normal activities.
After their stays, the investigators tested various surfaces in the rooms to see if they were contaminated. In more than half the rooms, door handles were harboring cold germs. In six rooms scientists found virus on pens, light switches, TV remote controls and faucets. Telephones were contaminated in five rooms.
Several months later six of the participants were invited back to the hotel to see if mucus taken from them during the initial study could be transferred to their fingertips by touching objects in the hotel rooms that had been swabbed with the germs. In 60 percent of the cases where people touched objects that had been allowed to dry for an hour, the virus was transferred. It was transferred in 33 percent of the cases where the objects had dried overnight.
"Most people know about the need for good hygiene, particularly when interacting with cold sufferers," reports study author Joe Rubino, M.A. "What they may not be aware of, and the study shows, is the need for good personal and surface hygiene even when an ill person is not present, because germs can survive on surfaces long after a person is gone."
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Sept. 29, 2006
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