[TangledUpInBlue]

NOT correct.

Man, the ignorance out there is amazing.

[driftdiver]

According to the Canadian Health Dept it can survive for days dried up on a table. Takes 5 minutes of boiling to kill it. Disinfectants do also work. A few as 1 organism can result in an infection.

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php

[Kartographer]

SURVIVAL OUTSIDE HOST: The virus can survive in liquid or dried material for a number of days (23). Infectivity is found to be stable at room temperature or at 4°C for several days, and indefinitely stable at -70°C (6, 20). Infectivity can be preserved by lyophilisation.

Public Health Agency of Canada

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php

[Black Agnes]

I’m sure the Canadian equivalent of the CDC is ignorant.

Why don’t you email them and explain their mistakes?

[steve86]

I can see where both POVs have some validity. It can be demonstrated in laboratory conditions that the virus can survive some amount of time on an exposed surface, say in a dried secretion, but this doesn't mean that an actual demonstrable mode of transmission occurs in this manner. Same if a technician takes a sample of a scrapping from somewhere. The virus might be viable on a slide or petri dish but not really in a state it will infect a person were it left on the rock where they got it. Lots of things happen in labs and test tubes that don't have much application to real-world, ambient conditions. So until it is conclusively proved that someone became infected by "touching something" that didn't just come out of another infected organism, I am skeptical of this mode of transmission.

[MarMema]

And your profession is? I handle body fluids for a living, just fyi.