How long can a germ live in a room?

How long can a germ last outside the body? It depends. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to find out how different germs fare outside the body.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works dot com
where smart Happens. I am Marshall Brain with today's question,
how long can a germ live in a room? The
length of time a germ remains infectious depends mostly on
the type of german is. A germ can be either
a virus or a bacterium, and each virus and bacterium

(00:23):
has a different behavior in the environment. For example, the
smallpox virus is incredibly durable. It can last for years.
Anthrax is the same way. Fortunately, smallpox has been eradicated
and anthrax is not very infectious. The AIDS virus is fragile.
It's only viable for a few hours. Hepatitis B, on

(00:45):
the other hand, may survive for up to a week.
Some diseases can't survive outside the human body at all.
Syphilis and got a rea share this trait, and therefore
they depend on intimate contact for transmission. Quite a few
common diseases seem to fall into the several days to
several weeks category for survival time outside the human body.

(01:08):
So the answer to the question is it depends on
the disease. Fortunately, your immune system is able to handle
the vast majority of bacteria and viruses that your body encounters.
Just About everything we touch is covered with germs. They
usually have no effect on us because our immune systems
deal with them. Also fortunate is the fact that simple

(01:31):
hygiene steps like washing your hands thoroughly before eating, can
reduce the chance of infection significantly. Do you have any
ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send
me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, go
to how stuff works dot com.