Combating SARS-CoV-2: leveraging microbicidal experiences with other emerging/re-emerging viruses

Abstract

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan City, China, late in December 2019 is an example of an emerging zoonotic virus that threatens public health and international travel and commerce. When such a virus emerges, there is often insufficient specific information available on mechanisms of virus dissemination from animal-to-human or from person-to-person, on the level or route of infection transmissibility or of viral release in body secretions/excretions, and on the survival of virus in aerosols or on surfaces. The effectiveness of available virucidal agents and hygiene practices as interventions for disrupting the spread of infection and the associated diseases may not be clear for the emerging virus. In the present review, we suggest that approaches for infection prevention and control (IPAC) for SARS-CoV-2 and future emerging/re-emerging viruses can be invoked based on pre-existing data on microbicidal and hygiene effectiveness for related and unrelated enveloped viruses.

SARS-CoV-2 mutational variants may represent a new challenge to society, but not to the virucidal armamentarium

“…Taken together, these results provide a high degree of confidence that a hygiene agent effective for original SARS-CoV-2 will be equally effective against newly emerging mutational variants of the pandemic virus. As expected, these microbicidal actives also display virucidal efficacy against other enveloped viruses, including, but not limited to, influenza viruses (Orthomyxoviridae) and Ebola viruses (Filoviridae) [7]. Again, it is the mechanism of action of these agents that is crucial in conferring their efficacy for a broad range of enveloped viruses.…”

“…Disruption of the viral envelope by microbicides (Figure 1) impairs several steps in this sequence and, therefore, renders the virion incapable of initiating infection of a host cell. Any lipiddisrupting agent should, in theory, be effective against any enveloped virus [7]. Microbicides which cause protein denaturation (Figure 1) act by disrupting the interactions between virus spike proteins and the cellular ACE2 receptors.…”

Microbicidal actives with virucidal efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and other beta- and alpha-coronaviruses and implications for future emerging coronaviruses and other enveloped viruses

“…In response to the current outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgency around establishing evidence-based IPAC approaches, we and others have hypothesized that the virucidal efficacy of commonly used microbicides against this emerging coronavirus should be predictable on the basis of the known susceptibility of enveloped viruses in general to microbicides [7][8][9]24 . In this paper, we confirm the virucidal efficacy of a variety of formulated microbicidal actives against SARS-CoV-2 and a number of members of the Coronaviridae family (HCoV-229E, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and MHV-1), indicating similar virucidal efficacy across members of the Coronaviridae.…”

“…The genomedegrading agents evaluated included ethanol, and sodium hypochlorite. Each of these types of microbicidal actives was expected, on the basis of the known susceptibility of pathogens to microbicides [7][8][9]24,59 (Fig. 1), to display virucidal efficacy against lipid-enveloped viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses.…”

“…Taken together, these results imply that similar virucidal efficacies should be displayed by such microbicides against future emerging coronaviruses, including mutational variants (isolates) of SARS-CoV-2 such as the recently emerging and highly transmissible 20I/501Y.V1, VOC 202,012/01, or B.1.1.7 variant 63,64 . The virucidal efficacies would be expected 24 to apply also to other emerging enveloped viruses, such as Ebola virus 65,66 , Lassa virus, Nipah virus, and influenza viruses such as the recently emerging G4 genotype H1N1 swine influenza virus 67 and the variant influenza viruses (H1N1v, H3N2v, H1N2v) in humans 68 . The latter expectation is supported by our own unpublished data on influenza strains and by a recent literature review 61 .…”