Personal care formulations demonstrate virucidal efficacy against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: Implications for hand hygiene and public health.

Sayandip Mukherjee,Ashish Shrikant Yekhe,Carol K Vincent,Harshinie W Jayasekera,Samiratou Ouédraogo

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0000228

Sayandip Mukherjee, Ashish Shrikant Yekhe + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000228

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Abstract

Despite considerable progress being made on vaccine roll out, practicing proper hand hygiene has been advocated as a consistent precautionary intervention against the circulating and emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2. Two variants of concern, namely beta and delta, have been shown to exhibit enhanced transmissibility, high viral load, and ability to escape antibody-mediated neutralization. In this report we have empirically determined the efficacy of selected personal care formulations from Unilever in inactivating the beta and delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 under simulated real-life conditions. All the formulations demonstrated greater than 99.9% reduction in viral infective titres which is comparable to inactivation of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus tested under the same conditions. Therefore, it can be concluded that well-designed personal care formulations when tested under consumer-centric conditions, and with proven efficacy against the parent strain of SARS-CoV-2 will continue to be effective against extant and emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Highlights

Generation of successive variants is an expected consequence of viral evolution and results primarily from extended viral persistence and propagation in the human population
The virucidal efficacy of three classes of fully formulated commercial products namely bar soap, liquid handwash, and alcohol-based sanitizer was tested against two SARS-CoV-2 VOC namely Beta and Delta
We established the virucidal efficacy of a range of marketed personal care products against both the Beta and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 and found them to be comparable to previously demonstrated efficacy of similar range of personal care products against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain

Summary

Introduction

Generation of successive variants is an expected consequence of viral evolution and results primarily from extended viral persistence and propagation in the human population. While majority of genetic variants are of insignificant consequence to the human host, certain traits of a selected number of variants could prolong the pandemic and reintroduce risk of COVID19 even among vaccinated individuals [1, 2]. In an analysis of the global spread of SARS-CoV2 variants and estimated changes in the effective reproduction numbers (R0) at country-specific level, it was clearly demonstrated that WHO-designated VOC have rapidly replaced previously circulating lineages with estimated transmissibility increases of 29%, 25%, 38% and 97% respectively for Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta [3]. In addition to enhanced transmissibility, many of these VOC have shown increased potential for immune evasion / escape [4, 5].

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