Cleaning Measures for a Home Safe from Swine Flu

Studies reveal that the swine flu virus has a long survival expectancy outside of a host body. If the cough of an infected person were to release droplets containing the swine flu virus over a surface, the virus would remain alive and able to infect anyone who touches the surface, for the next eight hours. When someone touches the surface inside eight hours, and then touches his eyes, nose or mouth, the virus is transmitted successfully to the new person.The swine flu virus is destroyed by heat between 75°C and 100°C. There are many chemical germicides, chlorine, detergent, antiseptic cleaners based on iodine, hydrogen peroxide and alcohol , that are good cleaning agents for surfaces that are contaminated, if used in the right way, in the right concentration. Sanitizing wipes and gels that contain alcohol are well used in cleaning the hands. These should be rubbed into the skin until dry.

When there is a swine flu- infected family member at home, care providers should make sure that any tissues or other disposable cloth used by the patient are thrown away in the garbage. The caregivers should also make sure to wash their hands with soap after such a cleaning-up chore. A good way to prevent the spread of swine flu around the house when there is a patient at home, is to make sure that all surfaces around the home that could receive droplets from the patient's coughs, are wiped down with disinfectant several times that day.

Caregivers in the home need to know that all personal effects of the patient, bed linen, dishes and utensils, clothing, etc., do not have to be treated separately. They can be mixed in with the regular household stuff; but care has to be taken that everything is washed thoroughly before being used by another family member. When linen and other personal effects are picked up to be taken in for cleaning, they should not be held close to the body. Hands should be washed properly afterwards. The bed linen needs to be tumble-dried hot after a wash.

The lesson to be learned here is that families do not need to institute special procedures that make the patient feel like some kind of outcast. Only a reasonable amount of common sense care is to be taken. It is easy to go overboard with cleaning and quarantining measures when public alert is high for a new disease. The flu spreads by contact with bodily fluids in some way; it is not like the pox that it should travel through the air. A reasonable amount of caution is all that is required.

Linus Orakles

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