1981 Volume 55 Issue 5 Pages 355-366
Virucidal activities of Methanol, Ethanol, Iso-propanol and N-propanol against 6 types of hydrophilic virus and 5 types of lipophilic virus which consisted of 4 types of enveloped virus and one type of Adeno virus were investigated.
Viral inactivation was determined by mixing 0.9 ml of alcohols with O.1 ml of diluted virus. Influenza virus and Herpes simplex virus were diluted with PBS and the other viruses with distilled water. The viral titer of Adeno virus was 46TCID50/0.1 ml and those of other viruses were 106TCID50/0.1ml. After end of test period 9 ml of PBS or distilled water were added to stop further action of alcohols.
Virucidal tests against Influenza virus were carried out by inoculating the virus into the allantoic cavity of the chick embryo and testing for viral hemagglutinins in the allantoic fluids. In case of all other viruses viral inactivation was determined by inhibition of CPE on Hela cells.
The inactivating concentrations of alcohols recorded in the tables practically denote final percentages of alcohols diluted with virus solution.
Lipophilic viruses are readily killed by all kinds of alcohols and the virucidal action increases with the increase in the number of carbon of the alcohols.
It seemed that the sensitivity of lipophilic viruses to alcohols resembled to that of vegetative forms of bacteria. But in this group, Adeno virus which was no envelope, revealed rather strong resistance to ethanol and iso-propanol which required 120 minutes to inactivate it at 20°C.
Hydrophilic viruses are relatively resistant to alcohols and are inactivated only by methanol and ethanol. These two alcohols revealed virucidal action decreased with the increase of the number of carbon of alcohols on the contrary to lipophilic ones. It was recognized, however, AHC virus had less resistancy to alcohols and easily killed by n-propanol. We have observed in the past that the reaction of AHC virus to several germicides was different from other types of Enteroviruses, and in this report too, AHC virus showed different attitude to alcohols.
