Travel bugs and diseases

[Kiikonen]

I recently made a TB that's supposed to travel to Africa and then back to me.

 

Later some things have started concerning me. What about the foreign viruses and bacteria and other sorts of goo that stick on the TB along it's journey? They certainly can and will stick on everything yet it may sound nuts!

 

Is there any information about moving TBs between places far from each other or somehow having different bacteria structure (or whatever it should be called)? Maybe disinfective cleaning or something should be recommended to be done in those situations.

 

Does anyone have any experience of anything connected with this topic? What should cachers do when moving TBs internationally?

[+The Caching Crew]

I recently made a TB that's supposed to travel to Africa and then back to me.

 

Later some things have started concerning me. What about the foreign viruses and bacteria and other sorts of goo that stick on the TB along it's journey? They certainly can and will stick on everything yet it may sound nuts!

 

Is there any information about moving TBs between places far from each other or somehow having different bacteria structure (or whatever it should be called)? Maybe disinfective cleaning or something should be recommended to be done in those situations.

 

Does anyone have any experience of anything connected with this topic? What should cachers do when moving TBs internationally?

 

I have traveled overseas many times with the same backpack and it has never been a problem. I wouldn't lick my packpack, or chew on the straps, but there has never been an issue with diseases.

 

The Caching Crew

Hayes VA

[+Userzero]

Dr. Peter Ender and colleagues at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, reported a unique experiment to the American Society of Microbiology. They swapped new dollar bills for old ones with students at a high school sporting event and grocery store checkout lanes. They then examined the dollar bills under a microscope to see if they were grungy or clean.

 

Of the dollar bills collected, 7% were infected with serious bacteria such as staphylococcus and fecal germs that can cause food poisoning. Eighty-six per cent harbored more mundane bugs and only 7% were free of bacterial contamination.

 

There was no direct evidence that people had contracted disease from handling the grungy money. But it's reasonable to assume that those working in banks and fast-food outlets are at greater risk than others less exposed to large amounts of greenbacks.

 

Do you disinfect the money you handle, or do you simply wash your hands afterward?

Edited July 28, 2008 by Userzero

[+fox-and-the-hound]

Couldn't be any worse than the hundreds of hands that have touched every inch of every cache and it's contents that you've handled. Just bring your pocket-bottle of sanitizer with you. It wouldn't hurt to do someone a favor and spray a TB with lysol if it's at your house overnight either.

[+Renegade Knight]

...Does anyone have any experience of anything connected with this topic? What should cachers do when moving TBs internationally?

Most germs need food to survive. That's why a kitchen has far more terms than a toilet seat.

Germs starve to death on surfaces that don't have anything for them to eat.

Viruses are another thing. Exposure to UV tends to winnow them out. However as someone has pointed out Money is far worse than a TB ever will be.

[+BlueDeuce]

It wouldn't hurt to do someone a favor and spray a TB with lysol if it's at your house overnight either.

 

I picked up a TB that had some 150+ keys attached to it. It was pretty dirty but fortunately all metal so I soaked that thing in cleaner several times. You wouldn't believe how much grime was left in the water.

 

I'm sure it's back to being dirty again.

 

As for TBs in general I wouldn't be any more concerned about it than I would the door handle of a business or paper currency.

[Neos2]

This reminds me of something my husband told me he had read just yesterday:

 

Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have!

 

Others have the right idea here. There is no more danger in TBs than in many other everyday items. Don't let the baby chew on them, wash your hands, and cache on.

[+russellvt]

What about the foreign viruses and bacteria and other sorts of goo that stick on the TB along it's journey? They certainly can and will stick on everything yet it may sound nuts!

 

Well, as others have also pointed out, if you're that paranoid about infectious diseases and similar, there are certainly much bigger worries out there in this world of our's than a little travel bug... public restrooms and/or restaurants, immigration and travelers at-large are probably some of the more note-worthy means of conveying communicable diseases (influenza being one of the big ones). Just the plain old cash in your pocket is going to see a lot more hands and bacteria/virii than your average travel bug... even if the bug's set for distant lands.

 

More to the point, many of those sorts of things (virii in-particular), don't tend to live that long outside of a host... two of the most deadly diseases (AIDs/HIV and Hepatitis for example) can only live outside the body for a few minutes (though that's actually several days in the case of Hep). Even then, they still need a pathway in to the body (eg. fluid exchange or open wound) before you can become infected. Luckily, things like the airborne version of Ebola (portrayed in movies such as Outbreak and 12 Monkeys to name a couple) just-don't-exist... and those sorts of virii currently have a bad habit of killing off all their hosts before they can propagate terribly far or be isolated/contained or sufficiently quarantined (luckily for us).

 

I think you're more apt to pick up a staph infection (which lives on the surface of your own skin) than suffer any issues as a result of caching... that is, unless you're actually caching while traveling within the other country...