“Money doesn’t stink,” said the Roman Emperor Titus. In connection with the corona pandemic, experts from the European Central Bank together with the Department of Medical and Molecular Virology at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) have now researched whether there is a risk of odorless danger.
The questions: How long do SARS-CoV-2 viruses actually remain infectious on banknotes and coins? Is it possible to become infected through contact with cash?
To find out, the researchers treated various euro coins and notes with virus solutions of varying concentrations and observed over several days how long infectious pathogens were detectable. A stainless steel surface served as a comparison.
2 days of viruses on the 1 euro coin
The results: While infectious viruses were still on the metal surface after 7 days, they had completely disappeared from the 10-cent piece after 6 hours and from the copper 5-cent piece after just 1 hour. It took 3 days for 10 euro notes to disappear completely, while for 1 euro coins it took at least two days.
But how likely is it that the viruses are actually transmitted from the surfaces of money to fingertips? For this purpose, banknotes, coins and credit card-like PVC plates were wetted with harmless coronaviruses and, under high-security conditions, with SARS-CoV-2 viruses. These surfaces were then touched by test subjects while still wet or already dry with their fingers or artificial skin and the viruses that remained were transferred to cell cultures. The following count of infectious viruses lets you breathe a sigh of relief: There was practically no transmission. “Under realistic conditions, infection with SARS-CoV-2 on cash is very unlikely,” say the authors.
Those: Daniel Todt et al. iScience,2021; doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102908
Articles from Mmw Advances in Medicine are provided here courtesy of Nature Publishing Group
