Pathogenic bacteria and viruses in medical environments can lead to treatment complications and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), and current cleaning protocols do not address hard-to-access areas or that may be beyond line-of-sight treatment such as with ultraviolet radiation. At the time of writing, the ongoing pandemic of the novel coronavirus known as novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has claimed over 4 million cases worldwide and is expected to have multiple peaks, with possible resurgences throughout 2020. It is therefore imperative that disinfection methods in the meantime be employed to keep up with the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and sterilize a wide array of surfaces as quarantine lockdowns begin to be lifted. Here, we tested the efficacy of Sani Sport ozone devices as a means to treat hospital equipment and surfaces for killing bacteria, degrading synthetic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA, and RNA from non-replicative capsid enclosed SARS-CoV-2. We observed a rapid killing of medically-relevant and environmental bacteria (Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus subtlis, and Deinococcus radiodurans) across four surfaces (blankets, catheter, remotes, and syringes) within 30 minutes, and up to a 99% reduction in viable bacteria at the end of 2-hour treatment cycles. Significant RNA degradation of synthetic SARS-CoV-2 RNA was seen an hour into the ozone treatment as compared to non-treated controls and a non-replicative form of the virus was shown to have significant RNA degradation at 30 minutes compared to a no treatment control and RNA degradation could be reliably detected at 10,000 and 1,000 copies of virus per sample. These results show the strong promise of ozone treatment for reducing risk of infection and HAIs.

中文翻译：

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用于医疗环境的消除细菌和SARS-CoV-2的臭氧处理

医疗环境中的致病细菌和病毒可导致治疗并发症和医院获得性感染（HAI），并且当前的清洁方案无法解决难以接近的区域或可能超出视线范围的治疗，例如紫外线辐射。在撰写本文时，被称为新型冠状病毒（2019-nCoV）的新型冠状病毒的持续大流行在世界范围内已造成400万例病例，预计将出现多个高峰，整个2020年可能再次出现。因此，必须采取消毒方法同时，随着隔离装置的禁闭措施开始解除，它被用来跟上个人防护设备（PPE）的供应并对各种表面进行消毒。这里，我们测试了Sani Sport臭氧设备作为治疗医院设备和表面以杀死细菌，降解合成的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）RNA和非复制性衣壳封闭SARS-CoV中的RNA的功效-2。我们观察到，在30分钟内，可以在四个表面（毛毯，导管，遥控器和注射器）的四个表面上迅速杀死与医学相关的环境细菌（大肠杆菌，粪肠球菌，枯草芽孢杆菌和放射性杜鹃球菌），并且杀死率高达99％。在2小时的治疗周期结束时，发现有生命力的细菌。与未处理的对照相比，臭氧处理后一个小时观察到合成SARS-CoV-2 RNA的显着RNA降解，与未处理相比，该病毒的非复制形式在30分钟时具有显着的RNA降解。可以可靠地检测到每个样本中10,000和1,000病毒拷贝的控制和RNA降解。这些结果表明，臭氧处理有望降低感染和HAI的风险。