London Might Disinfect Its Underground

LONDON, Oct. 23, 2006 — -- Perhaps you've had an uneasy feeling when grabbing the pole or strap inside a subway car. You might wonder who else has touched it and where they've been.

For the sake of your health, you should heed your instincts and touch metal bars and handles as little as possible, experts say

With news of powerful flu strains like the avian flu and hand-transmissible diseases such as colds, public transportation operators in Asia and Europe have considered using a new disinfectant in their undergrounds.

Many surfaces that people touch every day in the tube, as the London subway system is called, also carry thousands of bacteria and germs, according to experts.

"Public transportation is a very common way, we know, of how diseases ... spread," says Ben Mascall, spokesman with MTR Corp., which operates the railway in Hong Kong and has bid for two new rail franchises in the United Kingdom.

"Some viruses can stay on a surface for 24 hours," says Dr. John Trainer, at the University of Rochester in New York.

Hong Kong is among the first cities to test one of the latest anti-flu products, nano silver-titianium dioxide coating, or NSTDC. It is applied to all surfaces inside a subway car. The preliminary tests conducted in Hong Kong show that the disinfectant reduces the amount of bacteria by 60 percent, says Mascall.

But it has not yet been proved to work against more sinister bugs. "We don't know if it is effective against the bird flu, but there is a good chance," says Mascall. He argues that this is a better solution than asking people to cover their mouths.

So far, most cases of bird flu have been transmitted from bird to man, Trainer says. But this kind of disinfectant "might become important" if the virus responsible for bird flu morphs into a form easier to transmit from person to person.

In Hong Kong, NSTDC is spread everywhere, including escalator handrails, ticket machines and poles. This product is long lasting, according to the MTR spokesman. It is only spread once every three years and checked once every eight months.