To test the surface survival of influenza virus, we used a variety of materials commonly encountered in the home and workplace, including a hospital setting ( Table 1) ; choice of surfaces to be tested was discussed with the Department of Health, England to ensure relevance to public health policy. These included fibrous materials such as the ubiquitous J-clothH (Associated Brands) widely used for cleaning, a silver impregnated fabric with known bacteriostatic properties (Toray Textiles Europe Ltd.) of the type sometimes encountered in hospital staff clothing to combat nosocomial bacterial infections, as well as fabric from a child's soft toy. The latter fabric was made of non-absorbent polyester and, although a porous item overall, individual fibres might perform as a nonporous surface. A variety of non-porous plastic surfaces representing objects highly likely to be touched by multiple individuals such as light switch, telephone and keyboard plastics were also tested, as well as porous and non-porous 'background' materials such as various wood surfaces, glass, Perspex/plexiglass (poly (methyl methacrylate) -a thermoplastic often used as a light or shatterresistant alternative to glass) and metals. As a control surface, we used standard laboratory polystyrene culture dishes. As viruses, we used two human H1N1 strains: the laboratory adapted A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (PR8) strain because of ready availability and robust, convenient assay systems with a wide dynamic range, and an isolate of the current 2009 pandemic virus A/Cambridge/AH04/ 2009 (AH04), as a low passage history representative of a virus likely to be encountered in the current environment. The source and disinfection method used to clean the various surfaces before testing are listed in Table 1 .