2017 Volume 32 Issue 3 Pages 131-134
Reliability of a commercially available chemical product sold in Japan that has been claimed to inactivate viruses and kill bacteria on the environmental surface by releasing chlorine dioxide gas was investigated.
The aliquots of the viral fluid of influenza A/Aichi/2/68 strain virus propagated in the allantoic fluid of fertilized hens' eggs and the bacterial fluid of Staphylococcus aureus stock solution were poured on a glass slide as two and four droplets of 0.5 μL each, respectively, and placed in a 25 m3-space closed environment, with the temperature and relative humidity set at about 20°C and 25%, respectively, which resemble room conditions during the winter season. The concentration of the gas was manually adjusted at about 0.03 ppm by opening and closing the bottle cap. After 2 h, the dried-up remains of the droplets on the glass were washed out with 1 mL of viral culture medium or bacterial broth, and the amounts of the active virus and the living bacteria in the washing fluid were titrated using plaque or colony assays, respectively. The amounts of the active viruses and living bacteria were similar in the washing fluids from both the gas-exposed and the control slides, indicating that the gas had no virucidal and bactericidal activities under these conditions.
