Environmental and health impacts of spraying COVID-19 disinfectants with associated challenges

Abstract

Coronavirus refers to a group of widespread viruses. The name refers to the specific morphology of these viruses because their spikes look like a crown under an electron microscope. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has been reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, was proclaimed an international public health emergency (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and on 11 March 2020, it was declared as a pandemic (World Health Organization 2020). The official name of the virus was declared by the WHO as “COVID-19 virus”, formerly known as “2019-nCoV”, or “Wuhan Coronavirus”. The International Committee on Virus Taxonomy’s Coronavirus Research Group has identified that this virus is a form of coronavirus that caused a severe outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome in 2002–2003 (SARS). As a result, the latest severe acute respiratory syndrome has been classified as a corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pathogen by this committee. This disease spread quickly across the country and the world within the first 3 months of the outbreak and became a global pandemic. To stop COVID-19 from spreading, the governing agencies used various chemicals to disinfect different commercial spaces, streets and highways. However, people used it aggressively because of panic conditions, anxiety and unconsciousness, which can have a detrimental impact on human health and the environment. Our water bodies, soil and air have been polluted by disinfectants, forming secondary products that can be poisonous and mutagenic. In the prevention and spread of COVID-19, disinfection is crucial, but disinfection should be carried out with sufficient precautions to minimize exposure to harmful by-products. In addition, to prevent inhalation, adequate personal protective equipment should be worn and chemical usage, concentrations, ventilation in the room and application techniques should be carefully considered. In the USA, 60% of respondents said they cleaned or disinfected their homes more often than they had in the previous months. In addition to the robust use of disinfection approaches to combat COVID-19, we will explore safe preventative solutions here.

Environmental and ecotoxicological effects of drugs used for the treatment of COVID 19

“…On the other hand, the confinement and non-use of the vehicle fleet during the pandemic had positive impacts on the environment, particularly in the context of air quality due to the reduction in concentrations of particulate matter (PM), NO 2 and CO in significant cities around the world; thus the COVID-19 pandemic disaster lockdown strategies offer an important message to all countries of the world to restore environmental quality and the stability of the natural ecosystem (Bhat et al, 2021a). In addition to the primary sources of contamination, such as the antibiotics studied in the present review, the use of different products in the pandemic, such as the use of disinfectants, requires an immediate evaluation of the environmental effect in order to reduce the adverse effects on people and the environment, whether in water, soil or air (Bhat et al, 2021b). Table 4 below shows the leading antibiotic treatment technologies studied in this review article.…”

An Attention towards the Prophylactic and Therapeutic Options of Phytochemicals for SARS-CoV-2: A Molecular Insight

“…Up to now, several drug candidates for SARS-CoV-2 have been repurposed worldwide, and ongoing research also focuses on the identification and development of new drug candidates (natural or synthetic). Use of SARS-CoV-2 disinfectants is one of the most well-recognized preventive measures against this virus; however, SARS-CoV-2 disinfectants have also imposed environmental and health impacts, including the formation of poisonous and mutagenic by-products due to disinfectant-based pollution of water bodies, air, and soil [ 32 ]. To date, the drugs being studied include revamped influenza medications, anti-malarial drugs, ineffective Ebola drugs, as well as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, which were initially developed decades ago.…”

Environmental impacts of the widespread use of chlorine-based disinfectants during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…However, it is still practiced in several parts of the world, especially in and around medical facilities. Concerns regarding the application of CBDs for mass disinfection have been arising ever since the COVID-19 outbreak (Bhat et al, 2021 ; B. Chen et al, 2021a , b ; Z. Chen et al, 2021a , b ; Chu et al, 2021 ; Collins and Farmer, 2021 ; Dhama et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Luan et al, 2020 ; Mohanan et al, 2021 ; Pan et al, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2020a , b ; T. Zhang et al, 2021c , a , b ). Experiments were conducted by applying chlorine to wastewater and waterbodies to determine the extent to which DBPs were formed (Cui et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2022 ).…”