A study undertaken by the Department of Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases demonstrated that monkeypox viruses can stay infectious on steel surfaces for up to 30 days before being efficiently inactivated by alcohol-based disinfectants. 

Since 2022, the monkeypox virus has been spreading from one human host to another, and it is possible to get the virus through contaminated surfaces, such as in the home or hospital rooms.

Researchers investigated the virus by putting it on sanitized stainless steel plates and keeping them at three different temperatures: four degrees, 22 degrees, and 37 degrees Celsius. The researchers measured the quantity of infectious virus at various time intervals ranging from 15 minutes to several days to a week. Regardless of temperature, the amount of infectious virus changed little throughout the first several days. At 37 degrees, no virus capable of replicating was discovered after six to seven days; at 22 degrees, infection was no longer conceivable after ten to eleven days. At four degrees, the amount of virus reduced substantially only after 20 days, and there was no longer any chance of infection after 30 days.

It is, therefore, essential to disinfect surfaces to limit the risk of infection in the case of an epidemic. This is why the researchers examined the efficacy of five commonly used disinfectants. They discovered that disinfectants containing alcohol or aldehyde consistently lowered the probability of infection. However, a hydrogen peroxide-based disinfection did not adequately inactivate the virus in the investigation.

 According to experts, these findings confirm the WHOs advice to employ alcohol-based surface disinfectants.

(Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230515/Alcohol-based-disinfectants-can-effectively-protect-against-monkeypox-viruses.aspx)