(3–4 days) compared with porous materials (2 days). One exception in our observations was that phi 6 survived 3 days on hotel room beds, which would be a porous material. The prolonged survival on hotel room beds could have large-scale implications for public health. The results of our study provide insight into the potential risks of high-touch surfaces for hotel guest rooms. Presently, it is of ulti- mate importance that the hotel industry pri- oritizes its cleaning and sanitizing programs to prevent virus transmission and to provide further assurance to customers. Our results demonstrate that future training and cleaning programs should include an increased focus on nonporous surfaces and bedding. Simulation of Cross-Contamination From Hands to Hotel Room Surfaces Hands were artificially contaminated with high and low concentrations of phi 6 (10 7 PFU/cm 2 or 10 3 PFU/cm 2 , respectively) and transfer rates were recorded. These data are presented in Table 2. In both experiments, leather had the lowest transfer rate of phi 6 at high and low concentrations (23% and 14%, respectively); the wooden desk had the highest transfer rate of phi 6 at high and low concentrations (58% and 38%, respectively). At the high concentration, the desk (58%), door handles (51%), and bathroom faucets (56%) had the highest transfer rate and had val- ues above 50%. All surfaces were found to be above the detection limit of 0.9 log PFU/cm 2 . At the low concentration, the lowest trans- fer rate was found for remote controls, cur- tains, and leather, all at 14%. All surfaces fell below the detection limit of 0.9 log PFU/cm 2 . Although phi 6 was detected in some samples, the final average of the six samples tested on all surfaces was below the detection limit, which indicates that viral transmission from hands to surfaces is not likely when hands become con- taminated with a low level of viruses. The results of our experiment at the high concentration inoculation are consistent with previous research that has demonstrated that hands play an important role in the trans- mission of various contaminants, including viruses (Ansari et al., 1991; Scott, 2013). Simulation of Cross-Contamination From Hotel Room Surfaces to Hands The phi 6 transfer rates from artificially con- taminated hotel room surfaces to hands at
TABLE 2
Transfer Rate of Phi 6 From Hands to Hotel Guest Room Surfaces
Log and Transfer Rate With Low Level Inoculation (10 3 PFU/cm 2 )
Surface
Log and Transfer Rate With High Level Inoculation (10 7 PFU/cm 2 )
Log PFU/cm 2
Transfer Rate b (%)
Transfer Rate (%)
Log PFU/cm 2 a
Hands to Bed
1.9 ± 0.2
44
0.5 ± 0.4
24
Desk
2.5 ± 0.3
58
0.8 ± 0.3
38
Light switch
1.5 ± 0.1
35
0.7 ± 0.3
33
Door handle
2.2 ± 0.4
51
0.6 ± 0.3
29
Remote control
1.9 ± 0.3
40
0.3 ± 0.1
14
Room curtain
1.3 ± 0.2
30
0.3 ± 0.1
14
Hotel amenities
1.5 ± 0.3
35
0.4 ± 0.2
19
Leather
1.0 ± 0.2
23
0.3 ± 0
14
Bathroom faucet
2.4 ± 0.1
56
0.6 ± 0.3
29
a Mean and standard deviation of phi 6 from inoculated hands (10 7 or 10 3 PFU/cm 2 ) to hotel guest room surfaces after hands touched each surface for 20 s ( N = 6). b The transfer rate of mean and standard deviation of phi 6 from inoculated hands (10 7 or 10 3 PFU/cm 2 ) to hotel guest room surfaces after hands touched each surface for 20 s ( N = 6).
log 10; the survival rate curve was constructed using Microsoft Excel. For the cross-contami- nation analysis, means and standard deviations of log PFU/cm 2 were calculated. We calculated the transfer rate (%) following the formula obtained by Lopez et al. (2013): Percent transfer rates = (log PFU/cm 2 of phi 6 on recipient surface / log PFU/cm 2 of phi 6 on the original surface) × 100
cates was below the detection limit of 0.9 log PFU/cm 2 . The bathroom faucet had the last observed presence of phi 6 on day 7. Hotels are places where many people gather in close environmental conditions and have direct contact with surfaces. Therefore, any hygienic issues or poor environmental conditions in hotel areas and guest rooms make hotels a potential source of virus trans- mission (Park et al., 2019). Sifuentes et al. (2014) have shown that virus surrogates can transmit to other hotel rooms and parts of the hotel from contaminated surfaces by means of guests and housekeepers. The results of our study reveal that phi 6 contamination can be transmitted via fomi- tes to hands, increasing the likelihood of viral infection. The variability observed for the sur- vival of phi 6 among dierent hotel room sur- faces could be due to the type of each surface (e.g., porous versus nonporous). Viruses and their surrogates persist longer on nonporous surfaces compared with porous surfaces (Kasl- o et al., 2021; Lopez et al., 2013; Whitworth et al., 2020). Our study is consistent with these previous studies, demonstrating that phi 6 persisted longer on nonporous materials
Results and Discussion
Persistence of Phi 6 From Contaminated Hotel Room Surfaces Over 30 Days Table 1 shows the recovery of phi 6 on hotel room surfaces. The results indicate that phi 6 persisted for as long as 2 days on carpets, curtains, and leather coupon samples. We also found that phi 6 can persist for as long as 3 days on coupons of beds, wooden desks, door handles, and hotel amenities—and for as long as 4 days on light switches, remote controls, and bathroom faucets. Even though phi 6 appeared on some surfaces beyond the times previously mentioned, the average of the six samples collected from three repli-
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October 2023 • Journal of Environmental Health
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