Constant fear of transmitting the virus

Dear @AJK,

Given the ban on any new experiments on chimpanzees now in place, no-one can really do these studies any more.

Your post does remind me however of a cell culture experiment performed recently (https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/219/7/1044/5144374). Here, the scientists used a cell culture model to see how infectious the virus was after various treatments. One was measuring how infectious the virus stayed after many days after storage at 4, 21 and 37 degrees. After 30 days, the virus stored at 4 degrees did not change, at 21 degrees (room temperature) it reduced to 90%, and 37 degrees it reduced to 25%. It is important to note however that this was not on a dried surface, the virus was instead stored in a tube in liquid. So, we don’t know how it performs in the real world really.

The other important thing about this paper is the sensitivity of HBV to different detergents and alcohols. Ethanol at 60% or over and Propyl alcohol at 40% or over can inactivate HBV within 1 minute. This is a common component of hand-rubs. Disinfectants also work really well. So really, it sounds like you have done all you can to minimize any risk. These results would give me peace of mind.

Hope this helps,
Thomas