Role of interfering substances in the survival of coronaviruses on surfaces and their impact on the efficiency of hand and surface disinfection

  1. L Szpiro
  2. A Pizzorno
  3. L Durimel
  4. T Julien
  5. A Traversier
  6. D Bouchami
  7. Y Marie
  8. M Rosa-Calatrava
  9. O Terrier
  10. V Moules

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Contaminated environmental surfaces are considered to represent a significant vector for hospital-acquired viral infections. In this study, we have evaluated the impact of interfering substances on SARS-CoV-2 surface stability and virucidal efficiency of hand sanitizers and surface disinfectant. To this end, surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 was measured on stainless steel in different experimental conditions, with or without an artificial mucus/saliva mixture and compared against that of human coronavirus HCoV-229E and feline coronavirus FCoV. The impact of the mucus/saliva mixture on the virucidal efficiency of 3 commercial alcohol hand sanitizers and 1 surface chemical disinfectant against SARS-CoV-2, HCoV-229E and FCoV was then measured. Our results indicate that mucus/saliva mixture did not demonstrate a beneficial effect on the surface survival of tested viruses, with temperature being an important parameter. In addition, we demonstrated that interfering substances may play an important role in the virucidal efficacy of hand sanitizers and disinfectants, highlighting the need for adapted testing protocols that better reflect current “real life” conditions of use.

Highlights

  • Contaminated environmental surfaces are a significant vector for viral infections.

  • We studied the impact of interfering substances on SARS-CoV-2 surface stability and virucidal efficiency.

  • Mucus/saliva did not demonstrate a beneficial effect on viral surface stability, with temperature being an important parameter.

  • Interfering substances are important for virucidal surface activity of disinfectants.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.22.20180042: (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
    HCoV-229E, SARS-CoV-2 and FCoV were produced on MRC5 cells (ATCC-CCL-171), on Vero E6 cells (ATCC- CCL-1586) and on CRFK cells (CCLV-RIE-115), respectively.
    MRC5
    suggested: ATCC Cat# CCL-171, RRID:CVCL_0440)
    Vero E6
    suggested: None
    For the evaluation of surface disinfectant, another enveloped virus was introduced, the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA, ATCC VR-1566), produced on BHK-21 cells (ATCC CCL-10).
    BHK-21
    suggested: None

    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.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • 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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.22.20180042v1 on medRxiv