BACKGROUND: A major impediment to performing virological field studies in developing nations is the lack of ultra-low freezers as well as the expense and difficulty of shipping frozen samples. A commercially available product, ViveST, was developed to preserve nucleic acids at ambient temperature for use in specimen storage and transportation. However, its applications as a viral storage, transport and recovery device have not been evaluated. OBJECTIVE: To examine the ability of ViveST to preserve live virus following storage at ambient temperature. STUDY DESIGN: A panel of six viruses was stored at ambient temperature (~22 degrees C) in ViveST with fetal bovine serum (FBS), or ViveST with minimal essential media (MEM) and compared with virus stored in universal transport media (M4RT), MEM, and FBS alone. Stored viruses included: human adenovirus (14p), dengue virus 2 (16608), echovirus 3 (Morrisey), human rhinovirus 15 (1734), Coxsackie virus B5 (Faulkner), and herpes simplex virus 1 (HF). After 7 days storage at ambient temperature, virus recovery was measured via titration using viral plaque assays or focus-forming unit assays. RESULTS: Viral titer studies indicate that ViveST with either FBS or M4RT preserved/recovered 5 different viruses for 1 week at ambient temperature. MEM preserved 4 viruses while FBS and ViveST with MEM preserved 3 viruses each. Statistical analyses indicate that M4RT and ViveST with FBS preserved significantly more virus than the other treatments. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that ViveST with either FBS or M4RT may be useful in field specimen collection scenarios where ultra-cold storage is not available.