Coronaviruses roadmap:
Control Strategies
Roadmap for the development of disease control strategies for coronaviruses
Download 202410 Draft Coronavirus Disease control research roadmap FinalE
Pathogen inactivation
Pathogen inactivation
Research Question
- Develop and validate standardised and accessible methods to inactivate virus in farming, domestic and wildlife settings
Research Gaps and Challenges
- Understanding the persistence of different viruses on different surfaces and how much log reduction is needed to prevent transmission. This feeds into the challenge of identifying standards for declaring pathogen free status in the environment and on farms
- Identifying the most effective methods for inactivating different strains in the field to ensure safe handling protocols and procedures for sample collection
- We currently have incomplete data on the comparative effectiveness of inactivation methods (e.g., heat, chemicals, UV light) across different coronavirus strains, host species and contexts. Further study into the applicability in farm and wildlife settings is needed
- Current approaches to validate inactivation may rely on molecular diagnostics to detect viral nucleic acids, however this is flawed due to the lack of differentiation between the presence of infectious and historic viruses. Improvement to diagnostics testing should introduce diagnostics of active replication and these tests need to be implemented widely
- Due to the limitations of molecular testing, current approaches also require viral isolation to prove a presence/absence of infectious virus. Therefore, achieving regulation and approvals for pathogen inactivation methods requires access to- and expertise in BSL3/CL3/SAPO for safe handling and process validation
- Local policies, external stakeholder perceptions and in-country legislation will affect the acceptability of the proposed methods leading to variability. A global co-ordinated effort is needed to standardise methods for wider implementation
- Moving away from using animals in experimental work due to a lack of species-specific resources, cost, animal welfare/ethical considerations, the requirement for relevant expertise and facilities. We need new cell systems for investigations of this sort; however, consideration should be given to the emergence of lab adaptions in viral isolates which may affect viral kinetics and response to inactivation and therapeutics
Solution Routes
- Developing new tools e.g. pseudoviruses, that bypass the need to work under SAPO/BSL3/CL3 containment
- Developing and optimising tools to inactivate virus by air system (i.e. UV power per different airflow)
- Study the influence of environmental factors e.g. temperature, humidity, and surface type, on the efficacy of inactivation
- Modelling of inactivation methods in real setting.
- Study environmental impact and safety of inactivation methods
- Develop standardized protocols to ensure consistent inactivation rates and safety across different settings
- Exploring alternative methods of pathogen-inactivation e.g. composting, which occurs in low- and middle-resource settings
Dependencies
- The establishment and validation of standardised methods to measure virus inactivation and clarification on which gold-standard test to use to demonstrate negative result given that molecular testing can give positive results but do not infer live viruses. This is particularly important for farming practices following outbreak where access to laboratory testing may be constrained. Consideration could be given the expanding on the use of sentinel animals more widely.
State Of the Art
- Single pass UVC air treatment (1254 L/min) can effectively inactivate bovine coronavirus (2.4-log reduction). (Snelling, W. J., Afkhami, A., Turkington, H. L., Carlisle, C., Cosby, S. L., Hamilton, J. W. J., Ternan, N. G., & Dunlop, P. S. M. (2022). Efficacy of single pass UVC air treatment for the inactivation of coronavirus, MS2 coliphage and Staphylococcus aureus bioaerosols. Journal of Aerosol Science, 164, Article 106003). https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/101170681/1_s2.0_S0021850222000477_main_1_.pdf
Projects
What activities are planned or underway?
Differential susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 in animals : Evidence of ACE2 host receptor distribution in companion animals, livestock and wildlife by immunohistochemical characterisation
Planned Completion date 26/07/2021
Participating Country(s):
Netherlands
Veterinary Biocontained facility Network for excellence in animal infectiology research and experimentation
Planned Completion date 28/02/2023
Participating Country(s):
Europe