All the medical workers that are fighting the battle with coronavirus should also disinfect their shoes because the virus also spreads through the soles of shoes, a study finds.
The study published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that half of the samples from the soles of the medical staff in the Intensive Care Unit, a hospital in Wuhan, China, tested positive for Sars-CoV-2 i.e. the virus that causes the coronavirus disease. This means that the soles of the shoes of the medical staff are carrying the disease as well.
“In addition, as medical staff walk around the ward, the virus can be tracked all over the floor, as indicated by the 100% rate of positivity from the floor in the pharmacy, where there were no patients,” researchers wrote.
“Knowing the extent of environmental contamination of Sars-CoV-2 in COVID-19 wards is critical for improving safety practices for medical staff and answering questions about Sars-CoV-2 transmission among the public,” the report said.
We highly recommend that persons disinfect shoe soles before walking out of wards containing COVID-19 patients,” they concluded.
As of Monday, there are more than 1.87 million people infected with COVID-19 worldwide. And more than 550.000 coronavirus cases are in the US only which means that the US is the country with the most confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world.
Photo: Nickolay Romensky
