In fear of a global spread of the new Chinese coronavirus, precautionary measures are gradually being implemented in many countries and airports. This Friday, 26 dead, more than 800 infected, and two cases have been confirmed in France: one in Paris, and the other in Bordeaux. These are the first two cases in Europe.
For the moment, we know that cases of human-to-human contamination are quite possible, the coronavirus being transmitted “by air, by direct contact with secretions or through a contaminated object”, according to information from the Institut Pasteur de Lille. But is there a risk that packages from Chinese online sales sites, such as AliExpress, carry the virus, and that they transmit it to humans?
“The infectivity of a virus decreases very quickly”
“This risk is extremely low, not to say nonexistent,” says Professor Thomas Baumert, doctor and expert in viral diseases at Inserm and CHU Strasbourg, interviewed by BFMTV.com. The latter wants to be reassuring: “There is no reason to panic because the infectivity of a virus decreases very quickly, it disappears a few hours after the virus is outside the body.”
“However, we cannot exclude it completely, because it is theoretically always possible”, nuances the researcher. “The hepatitis virus, for example, can survive for a few days in the same place. But for the time being, the only real risk lies in the human carriers of the virus returning from China. special hygiene recommendations for parcels from China, “said this expert professor of viral and hepatic diseases.
Vincent Enouf, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute and deputy head of the National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses, does not completely exclude this possibility either, given that “there are still many unknowns concerning this virus”. He assures that “the best mode of transmission of a virus remains the postillions, the droplets”.
To be transmitted, “viruses need a host”
“We clearly identified the flu virus once on tickets! Well, it was the genome and not the living virus … What is certain is that viruses do not multiply like bacteria: they need a host. If it’s cold and humid, viruses have more resistance, “said the researcher at BFMTV.
“For example, at the Pasteur Institute, we keep them at -80 ° c in liquid so that they survive. That the coronavirus resists on a package, it therefore does not seem serious to me. On door handles and computer keyboards, survival lasts only a few minutes “, relativizes the scientist specialist in respiratory viruses.
An opinion shared by the researcher from Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) Vittoria Colizza, contacted by BFMTV.com. This researcher at the Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health considers that it is too early to say how long the coronavirus could survive outside a host body, that is to say on non-living surfaces.
“This virus is still very new, and we know too little about it and the details of its transmission. It seems obvious to us today that it is transmitted from man to man, but it is difficult to know s ‘it could survive on non-living surfaces such as parcels,’ she concludes.
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