Posted By Swis The chances are nil as the virus can not stay live for long wihtout a host cell.

Posted By Swis A few things to clear here : 1) we are talking about a public health and safety forum therefore there’s no harm in using the terms ‘live’ for the viruses. If we can use the word ‘live’ for electricity , surely we can use it for viruses. If you want to discuss the technicality then we’ll have to find another forum. 2) Definition of ‘live’ as described having to respire, grow, eat, generate internal energy, self-reproduce or have a metabolism is completely flawed. 3) There’s no need to teach me of different ‘life’ spans of the viruses. I’ve used the word ‘virus’ in my previous post which corresponds to Flu Virus described by Badger (thread). I only addressed the question asked in this thread. 4) I believe in constructive debate and would like other to do the same. No personal comments please. By the way, what is “the chemical soup of landfill sites”? Never heard of that ‘soup’…:-)

Posted By safetyamateur Barrie, why did they start calling you 'Badger' when the logical choice would have been 'Henry' or 'Goag?

Posted By Barrie (Badger) Etter Badger came about from work colleagues when on shop floor many years ago. Something to do with the dark stripes of hair amongst the silver - started turning when in early thirties. Alternatively my inquisative nature like a Badger to ask questions when I don't know the answer, better than being called Oi! W several dots r =O} Badger

Posted By Tabs From my layman's understanding of some rather official-looking guidance read a while back, the tissue (based on cellulose) will desiccate the virus, thus interrupting its ability to remain viable.

Posted By Nicholas Sutcliffe This is just to clear up the understanding, I’m off for the rest of the week so this is loke a Friday for me: Source: Dictionary.com Live–adjective 1.being alive; living; alive: live animals. 2.of, pertaining to, or during the life of a living being: the animal's live weight. 3.characterized by or indicating the presence of living creatures: the live sounds of the forest. 4.Informal. (of a person) energetic; alert; lively: The club members are a really live bunch. 5.full of life, energy or activity: His approach in any business dealing is live and fresh. 6.burning or glowing: live coals in the fireplace. 7.having resilience or bounce: a live tennis ball. 8.being in play, as a baseball or football. 9.loaded or unexploded, as a cartridge or shell: live ammunition. 10.made up of actual persons: to perform before a live audience. 11.(of a radio or television program) broadcast while happening or being performed; not prerecorded or taped: a live telecast. 12.being highly resonant or reverberant, as an auditorium or concert hall. 13.vivid or bright, as colour. 14.of current interest or importance, as a question or issue; controversial; unsettled. 15.moving or imparting motion; powered: the live head on a lathe. 16.still in use, or to be used, as type set up or copy for printing If we can have a live tennis ball and a live colour and a live TV show etc etc, I’m sure it’s ok to have a live virus. have a happy week all, and dont let the nitpickers get you down.

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Live - No But the question relates to survival of the infective particle in landfill. The practical answer is no. After a year of detailed study of virus survival on and in soil, and in landfill in particular, thanks to a commission from RoI, I have reviewed in great detail the survival of a wide variety of virus agents and other pathogens from waste. Dilution factors play a big part, and if virus contaminated items are exposed (should not happen in a sanitary landfill) then dessication and sunlight quickly reduce infectivity to zero. Within the landfill matrix, virus particles bind to clays and soils effectively reducing horizontal movement. Leachate is highly toxic primarily due to its pH. No doubt it happened in years gone by, but no active landfill site exists in the first world where leachate contamination of the water table is a reasonable possibility. There is a remarkably complex literature concerning virus survival in soil and in landfill. Despite the evidence for very rapid decline, it is necessary to discuss the practicalities - the opportunities for exposure are non-existent. For waste handlers, ie those handling fresh clinical wastes and/or domestic refuse, the risks of exposure are considerably greater and some basic hygiene measures would be particularly helpful though even in these circumstances the additional risks are probably small. DoH has rushed out some temporary guidance for waste handlers and with the Inst Wastes management we are working on something a little more specific. If anyone has particular concerns they can get in touch directly.

Posted By Barrie (Badger) Etter Ian / Dave Thanks for taking time out to satisfy an inquisitive Badger. One more question - From the time the virus leaves a host / carrier, how long before it is no longer a viable 'threat' if it does not find another host? At landfill I presume there are rats - What possibof them becoming carriers? Badger

Posted By Ian Blenkharn I don't know the answer to this, and I am not aware of any evidence in the literature - quiet frankly I doubt anyone has bothered to research the issue! Intuitively, I would say its not a problem. Landfill sites are busy places where rodent control should keep on top of such problems, If rodents or birds or insects etc could access infective materials the amount they might carry is small and the likelihood of onward exposure is surely small - after all, a rat will run away and flies don't sneeze! I have no information as to the pathogenicity of influenza virus in rodents - they may be susceptible but if they are there is no certainty if would result in a respiratory infection as it does in humans. Given the huge number of potentially harmful micro-organisms deposited in landfill sites there are very few human infections even among staff working on site. As always, basic personal hygiene is adequate. Trouble is how often you see refuse collectors munching on a bacon butty in the vehicle cab, with their gloves on the dashboard and as much muck on their hands as on the gloves that the were wearing. And of course, no thought of hand hygiene!

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Yes, a Health & Safety failure indeed. A failure to manage such basic hygiene issues is just that, though those paid to manage such issues may seek to put the blame elsewhere just to be on the safe side - pun intended! I am just about to publish information concerning hygiene standards in a clinical waste treatment facility. Glove use and hand hygiene was appalling, with gloves and clothing liberally splashed with blood from inadequately packaged wastes occurring in almost 100% of staff within 4 hours. There was a predictable desire to blame the waste producers, but that didn't adequately paint the whole picture. Despite being aware of the particular risks of infection, staff were observed to handle wastes without any gloves, and at other times to have a tea break or ciggie break without bothering to remove those gloves. Using a forensic technique to detect latent blood staining, there was blood to be found everywhere. On door handles and push plates, on the taps, soap dispensers, bowl and towel holders of the hand washing facilities, and on furniture items including the arms of chairs and table tops in the canteen area. Even on the handle of the jug kettle in teh kitchen! And yes, various infections had been documented among this cohort of workers, though fortunately and despite a high incidence of sharps injury and other blood and body fluid exposures no seroconversions, so far! For drivers collecting wastes from hospitals, the situation was very similar. Hand hygiene was almost non-existent. Blood was present on the internal and external door handles of the cab, and on the steering wheel of most vehicles studied. On-board washing facilities were non-existent, with staff relying on public ally accessible facilities while on the road. For this group, as for those collecting domestic refuse, the big problem was glove use and hand hygiene. Gloves were usually removed after handling wastes (though not always), and then carried by hand to be stored in the vehicle cab. Doh! With 6 or more hours on the road, meal breaks were inevitably taken in the cab. Yummy.

Posted By Phil Rose Dave - surely you hit the nail on the head in your first sentence. This is true nit picking over semantics. I am sorry but the use of the word 'live' by Swis will not have made any material difference whatsoever to the meaning or ultimate interpretation of his post to anyone; including a virologist or similar. No one would have gone away from this post any the worse off for the use of the word 'live' in relation to describing a virus. If the latest terminology for a killed virus (I assume that for it to be described as being killed in the first place, virologists must have previously thought of it as 'live') is 'inactivated, then perhaps we should hereafter describe viruses that were previously described as 'live' as 'activated' instead. Lets be sensible!!!

Posted By Swis The issue of viruses classified as micro-organisms is a debatable topic. Most (and I must emphasis on the word MOST) microbiologist(virologists) classify viruses as micro-organisms, however some believe it otherwise. So it depends in which group do you belong to hence the use of word 'live'. I refer to Dave’s commit in response to his first post; “effectively zero given the dilution factor and natural deterioration of the H1N1 viral envelope when exposed to air, UV light, the chemical soup of landfill sites, etc.; eventually destroying it.” (doesn’t that applicable to viruses on hands) Similar response has been portrayed by Ian; “If rodents or birds or insects etc could access infective materials the amount they might carry is small and the likelihood of onward exposure is surely small”. (doesn’t that apply in terms of hand contaminated with virus) Now, it’s quite ironic that both of the professionals don’t admit to the fact that transmission of flu through hands is negligible but the in their own post, they do accept that virus’s potency to cause disease gets less due to dilution factors and exposure to external environment etc(without host cell). Flu virus have a very limited ‘life’ span without a host cell (ranging from seconds – couple of hours), depending on the type of surface. Furthermore, certain micro-organisms only tend to cause a disease in certain species. So its not necessary that micro-organism which causes disease to humans will also the disease to animals, or vice versa. In regards to poor statistical data regarding landfill site and transmission of viral infections, the fact is very clear…. There’s lack of evidence to support the fact that viral infections (except foodborne infections) can spread wihout ‘direct’ exposure …. Surely the studies will follow to landfill sites, should such evidence appears.

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Swis My last comment - though I doubt it will be yours. It's becoming far too tedious. The issue of transmissibility via hands is one of practicality and cannot be dismissed as you seek to do, in the face of worldwide consensus expert opinion, on hard surface survival studies. To do those studies, we put a fixed amount of infective virus on a hard surface and sample at regular intervals to determine the rate of loss of viability. But on the issue of transmissibility via hard surfaces and hands it is important to consider the reality of deposition - one or more infected individuals constantly shedding virus with respiratory secretions via coughs and sneezes. So on those hard surfaces, though virus inactivation will occur quite rapidly, the deposition of infective virus can be frequent and regular. We are concerned with that infective virus most recently deposited, that contaminates out fingers and can cause infection when touching nose, mouth or eyes. If you can assure me that your chosen hard surface was contaminated with virus only yesterday I would be reasonably happy, but you can't do that. (Incidentally, that is the scenario of the landfill site, where deposited material is not fresh and though it is topped up regularly, that newer material is also not fresh). You fall into a rather naive trap of considering contamination that occurs at one moment in time, and does not recur thereafter. In that case, I might reluctantly agree with you, though your wild extrapolation from that point onward reduces your case to a point of naivety. Surfaces may be heavily and repeatedly contaminated and at least some of the virus load will be fresh and infective. By contrast, you assume that whatever we might touch was deposited so long ago that it must be non-infective, or dead, or non-replicable, or whatever. That is where you go so badly wrong, by taking a single in vitro observation and wildly extrapolating without thinking about the reality of trnsmission routes.

Posted By Dave Merchant Hand-washing for the person with the infection is the most important factor, as they're the ones replenishing all your surfaces, and I agree if they don't bother to take any precautions there's little hope for the rest of us to keep up. If a patient walks over and shoves his fingers up my nose, I'm stuffed in more ways than one. For everyone else, washing hands is advised for two reasons aside from the direct effect - firstly, they may be pre-symptomatic patients themselves, and secondly it helps reinforce the memory that surfaces present a risk. In hospitals we know that people who keep getting told to wash their hands think more about stuff like grabbing the handle of the bathroom door, picking stuff off the floor, etc., but just giving them masks means they have no such aversion response. Having said that there will be cases where people transfer virus to their face between washes, and I'm not saying people should live with their hands in a bucket - that's why we're not claiming that any of these preventative measures will stop the pandemic. Washing hands before eating/drinking/handling food or food containers/touching your baby will of course help, and if you're bothered about door handles and shopping trolleys, carry a bottle of gel. Premises owners are advised to increase cleaning cycles but there's no need to steam-clean your furniture - the goal is to minimise deposition so a basic level of caution from the rest of us will suffice, but if your office is dripping with snot from every square inch, I for one will be staying in the car park ;) The point is being worried about the door handle makes you less likely to grab it then immediately pick your nose, despite it being a semi-conscious effect, and the combination of disinfection and contact aversion is what we're after. Picking your nose 20 minutes later is fine, provided you've not touched anything else contaminated, so it's about thinking which surfaces are likely to be shared (bathroom doors, lift buttons, etc) and which not (your keyboard, bacon butty, etc.) As Ian's man with the fragrant bacon butty needs to remember - it's not the muck you can see which kills you, it's the muck on the muck you can't see.

Posted By martinw Dead right.