title: Survival of influenza A virus on contaminated student clothing.
abstract: The role of contaminated clothing in the transmission of influenza A virus during an epidemic period was investigated by examining the recovery of infectious influenza virus from experimentally virus-contaminated clothing, which had been subejected to routine wearing and washing for several months or years. The amount of infectious virus recovered from the nine types of clothing decreased with time and was shown to differ widely between clothing samples, when the contaminated clothing samples were maintained in uncovered glass Petri dishes in a safety cabinet under air blowing. These results indicate a dependence of virus transmissibility on the nature of the contaminated clothes. The difference in recovery was shown to have no significant correlation with the thickness or the materials of the clothing; however, a correlation was observed with the residual amount of water in the deposited virus preparation on the test clothing.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Nursing Science, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama 641-0011, Japan.
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.affiliation: Wakayama Shin-ai Women's Junior College, Wakayama 640-0341, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsujimoto
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Nursing Science, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama 641-0011, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Wakayama Shin-ai Women's Junior College, Wakayama 640-0341, Japan.
authors.forename: Augustine Hajime
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Koyama
keywords: contaminated clothes; indirect transmission; influenza virus; viral epidemics; virus inactivation