Vinegar and Its Active Component Acetic Acid Inhibit SARS-CoV-2 Infection In Vitro and Ex Vivo

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Abstract

Effective and economical measures are needed to either prevent or inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, in the upper respiratory tract. As fumigation of vinegar at low concentration (0.34%) ameliorated the symptoms of mild SARS-CoV-2 infection, we tested in vitro the potential antiviral activity of vinegar and of its active component, acetic acid. We here demonstrate that both vinegar and acetic acid indeed strongly inactivate SARS-CoV-2 infectivity in Vero cells. Furthermore, vinegar treatment caused a 90% inhibition of the infectious titer when directly applied to a nasopharyngeal swab transfer medium of a COVID-19 patient. These effects were potentiated if conduced at a temperature of 45 °C vs. 37 °C, a condition that is transiently generated in the upper respiratory tract during fumigation. Our findings are consistent and extend the results of studies performed in the early and mid-20 th century on the disinfectant capacity of organic acids and can provide an affordable home-made aid to prevent or contain SARS-CoV-2 infection of the upper respiratory tract.

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.08.193193: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Twenty-four h later, 50 plaque forming units (PFU) of a previously titrated SARS-CoV-2 isolate (GISAID accession ID: EPI_ISL_413489) were added to vinegar (from 0.28% to 0.008%) or acetic acid (from 0.1 to 0.5%) serially diluted (1:2) in PBS and incubated for 15 min at either 37 °C or 45 °C before addition to confluent Vero cells.
    Vero
    suggested: CLS Cat# 605372/p622_VERO, RRID:CVCL_0059)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.