Your $20 bill: a hot spot for influenza

A new study has found that some influenza viruses when mixed with mucus can survive for up to 17 days on paper money.  "It's still alive. And it's alive in quantities that can infect," says Dr. Thomas, a virologist at the National Centre for Influenza.

Officials at the Swiss National Bank are concerned about the possibility of an influenza pandemic.  They then approached Dr. Thomas and his colleagues to see whether they should be worried that bank notes could spread infection to their staff and to the broader public during a pandemic.

The method the scientists took was that they set about to inoculate small pieces of bank notes with several different strains of human influenza. The notes were then allowed to dry naturally and were subsequently kept at room temperature (roughly 22 degrees Celsius). In trying to see whether the bank note medium contained live viruses, at various points, the scientists submerged pieces of the notes in a viral culture.

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