Ozone treatment effectively eliminates SARS-CoV-2 from infected face masks

PLoS One. 2022 Jul 22;17(7):e0271826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271826. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic is causing profound health, economic, and social problems worldwide. The global shortage of medical and personal protective equipment (PPE) in specialized centers during the outbreak demonstrated the need for efficient methods to disinfect and recycle them in times of emergency. We have previously described that high ozone concentrations destroyed viral RNA in an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 strain within a few minutes. However, the efficient ozone dosages for active SARS-CoV-2 are still unknown. The present study aimed to evaluate the systematic effects of ozone exposure on face masks from hospitalized patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Face masks from COVID-19 patients were collected and treated with a clinical ozone generator at high ozone concentrations in small volumes for short periods. The study focused on SARS-CoV-2 gene detection (assessed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)) and on the virus inactivation by in vitro studies. We assessed the effects of different high ozone concentrations and exposure times on decontamination efficiency. We showed that high ozone concentrations (10,000, 2,000, and 4,000 ppm) and short exposure times (10, 10, and 2 minutes, respectively), inactivated both the original strain and the B.1.1.7 strain of SARS-CoV-2 from 24 contaminated face masks from COVID-19 patients. The validation results showed that the best condition for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation was a treatment of 4,000 ppm of ozone for 2 minutes. Further studies are in progress to advance the potential applications of these findings.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / prevention & control
  • Humans
  • Masks
  • Ozone* / pharmacology
  • Ozone* / therapeutic use
  • Pandemics / prevention & control
  • SARS-CoV-2

Substances

  • Ozone

Supplementary concepts

  • SARS-CoV-2 variants

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Madrid, Spain) under Grant COV20/00702; Fundación Mapfre Guanarteme under Grant OA20/072; and CIBER de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid Spain under Grant CB21/13/00100. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.