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Determining Viral Disinfection Efficacy of Hot Water Laundering
Citation:
Mikelonis, A., J. Archer, B. Wyrzykowska, E. Morris, J. Sawyer, T. Chamberlain, A. Abdel-Hady, M. Monge, AND A. Touati. Determining Viral Disinfection Efficacy of Hot Water Laundering. Journal of Visualized Experiments . JoVE, Somerville, MA, 184:e64164, (2022). https://doi.org/10.3791/64164
Impact/Purpose:
This protocol provides an example of a laboratory process for conducting laundering studies that generate data on viral disinfection. While the protocol was developed for research during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is intended to be a framework adaptable to other virus disinfection studies in that it demonstrates the steps for preparing the test virus, inoculating the test material, assessing visual and integrity changes to the washed items due to the laundering process, and quantifying the reduction in viral load. Additionally, the protocol outlines the necessary quality control samples for ensuring the experiments are not biased by contamination and measurements/observations that should be recorded to track the material integrity of the PPE items after multiple laundering cycles. The representative results presented with the protocol used the Phi6 bacteriophage inoculated onto cotton scrub, denim, and cotton face covering materials and indicate that the hot water laundering and drying process achieved over a 3-log reduction (99.9%) in viral load for all samples (a 3-log reduction is the disinfectant performance metric in EPA’s Product Performance Test Guideline 810.2200). The reduction in viral loadwas also uniform across different locations on the PPE items. The results of this viral disinfection efficacy testing protocol should help the scientific community explore the effectiveness of home laundering for other types of test viruses.
Description:
In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a laboratory protocol was developed to test the viral disinfection efficacy of hot water laundering of cloth face coverings, cotton scrubs, and denim pants. The Phi6 virus (bacteriophage) was used as the organism to test disinfection efficacy.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Determining Viral Disinfection Efficacy of Hot Water Laundering
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