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Ozone Treatment for Elimination of Bacteria and SARS-CoV-2 for Medical Environments

Craig Westover, Savlatjon Rahmatulloev, David Danko, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, Niamh B. O’Hara, Rachid Ounit, Daniela Bezdan, View ORCID ProfileChristopher E. Mason
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/420737
Craig Westover
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
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Savlatjon Rahmatulloev
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
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David Danko
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
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Ebrahim Afshinnekoo
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
3The WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
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Niamh B. O’Hara
4Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech, New York, NY, USA
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Rachid Ounit
4Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech, New York, NY, USA
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Daniela Bezdan
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
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Christopher E. Mason
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
2The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
3The WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
5The Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, New York, NY, USA
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  • ORCID record for Christopher E. Mason
  • For correspondence: chm2042@med.cornell.edu
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Abstract

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.

Competing Interest Statement

NO, RO, and CEM hold shares in a company (Biotia) that builds technology to surveil hospital environments and screen patients to identify pathogens, however that company's technology is not used in this study.

Footnotes

  • Emails, Craig Westover <cdw2002{at}med.cornell.edu>, Savlat Rahmatulloev <savlatrahmatulloev{at}gmail.com>, Danko David <dcd3001{at}med.cornell.edu>, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo <eba2001{at}med.cornell.edu>, Niamh B O’Hara <niamh.ohara{at}cornell.edu>, Rachid Ounit <rouni001{at}ucr.edu>, Daniela Bezdan <dab2074{at}med.cornell.edu>, Christopher Mason <chm2042{at}med.cornell.edu>

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Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 01, 2020.
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Ozone Treatment for Elimination of Bacteria and SARS-CoV-2 for Medical Environments
Craig Westover, Savlatjon Rahmatulloev, David Danko, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, Niamh B. O’Hara, Rachid Ounit, Daniela Bezdan, Christopher E. Mason
bioRxiv 420737; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/420737
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Ozone Treatment for Elimination of Bacteria and SARS-CoV-2 for Medical Environments
Craig Westover, Savlatjon Rahmatulloev, David Danko, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, Niamh B. O’Hara, Rachid Ounit, Daniela Bezdan, Christopher E. Mason
bioRxiv 420737; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/420737

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