Rhinoviruses can survive on environmental surfaces for several hours under ambient conditions. Hands can readily become contaminated after contact with such surfaces, and self-inoculation may lead to infection. Whereas hand washing is crucial in preventing the spread of rhinovirus colds, proper disinfection of environmental surfaces may further reduce rhinovirus transmission. In this study, the capacities of Lysol Disinfectant Spray (0.1% o-phenylphenol and 79% ethanol), a domestic bleach (6% sodium hypochlorite diluted to give 800 ppm of free chlorine), a quaternary ammonium-based product (7.05% quaternary ammonium diluted 1:128 in tap water), and a phenol-based product (14.7% phenol diluted 1:256 in tap water) were compared in interrupting the transfer of rhinovirus type 14 from stainless steel disks to fingerpads of human volunteers upon a 10-s contact at a pressure of 1 kg/cm2. Ten microliters of the virus, suspended in bovine mucin (5 mg/ml), was placed on each disk, and the inoculum was dried under ambient conditions; the input number on each disk ranged from 0.5 x 10(5) to 2.1 x 10(6) PFU. The dried virus was exposed to 20 microliters of the test disinfectant. The Lysol spray was able to reduce virus infectivity by > 99.99% after a contact of either 1 or 10 min, and no detectable virus was transferred to fingerpads from Lysol-treated disks. The bleach (800 ppm of free chlorine) reduced the virus titer by 99.7% after a contact time of 10 min, and again no virus was transferred from the disks treated with it.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)