Evaluation of Virucidal Efficacy of Household Chemicals

Introduction: Given the use of household chemicals by the population for prevention of the novel coronavirus disease, it is relevant to establish their efficacy.

Objective: To evaluate virucidal efficacy of household chemicals against certain highly contagious viruses.

Materials and methods: In 2022–2023, we tested the virucidal efficacy of 37 household chemical cleaning gels, sprays, solutions based on sodium hypochlorite, organic and inorganic acids, and cationic surfactants intended for decontamination and cleaning of surfaces against poliovirus type 1 (Sabin attenuated LSc/2ab strain), virus titer = 6.8 lg TCID50, and adenovirus type 5, virus titer = 6.5 lg TCID50, according to Clause 3.5 of Russian Guidelines R 4.2.3676–20, Methods of laboratory testing of disinfectants for efficacy and safety. Study limitations: Hand wash products with disinfection potential were not tested.

Results: Disinfecting agents containing sodium hypochlorite demonstrated efficacy against the study viruses within 5 and 15 minutes, respectively. The time to achieve virucidal efficacy of the samples containing organic and inorganic acids varied from five to 30 minutes. We observed no significant differences (p > 0.05) in the influence of various proportions and percentage concentrations of organic and inorganic acids in the composition of the product samples on the time of manifestation of virucidal efficacy, which suggests potential impact of other ingredients. Surfactants containing 0.264 % to 0.8 % of alkyldimethylbenzylammonium chloride as an active substance showed their virucidal efficacy 30 minutes after wiping, also suggesting the effect of other chemicals added.

Conclusions: We established the virucidal efficacy of household cleaning products, thus confirming that they can be recommended for interruption of the epidemic chain of transmission of viral infections given proper concentrations of the product and exposure time used. Further research is needed to evaluate effects of non-major ingredients of the disinfectants on their virucidal efficacy.

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