Household cleaning products can inactivate SARS-CoV-2

Researchers at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity have tested the effectiveness of common household cleaning products’ ability to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces, in one of the first COVID-related studies to focus on common cleaning chemicals typically used to decontaminate surfaces in the home. Their work has been published in the journal Viruses.

A 2020 survey led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US revealed that more than 80% of respondents did not feel they knew how to disinfect their home and clean safely to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, despite increasing their household cleaning efforts. To address this issue, Dr Julie McAuley and her research team tested the ability of cheap and readily available household cleaning products to render SARS-CoV-2 non-infectious, which included vinegar, bleach, dishwashing detergent and ethanol to represent alcohols available in the house.

“Our findings show that detergent, bleach and alcohol are highly effective at making SARS-CoV-2 non-infectious, but vinegar does not work at all,” McAuley said.

The study findings also reveal the minimum concentration that users can dilute the household cleaning product and still inactivate SARS-CoV-2. McAuley revealed, “To make an effective cleaning solution, it’s as simple as adding a similar amount of detergent to water as you would for your dishes (2 mL in 1 L), then wiping over the potential SARS-CoV-2 contaminated surface and allowing it to dry.

“For bleach, our results show that as little as 5 mL can be added to 1 L of water and could be ideal to disinfect bathroom surfaces. Alcohol-containing handwashes, or solutions used for cleaning surfaces, must contain more than 40% alcohol to be effective.”

The study also tested whether combining the household products would increase their effectiveness and found that there was no benefit. “Surprisingly,” McAuley said, “when we combined bleach and detergent, we did not see increased virucidal potential for inactivating SARS-CoV-2 compared to using each component on their own.

“We must also warn against combining chemicals in an attempt to increase their virucidal activity, as some household disinfectants contain buffering agents that we found may counteract the effective virucidal concentration of the other chemical it was mixed with.”

All tested dilutions, products and combinations have been published in the study and are available for the public to use to inform their COVID cleaning plans. McAuley noted, “We wanted to provide all the information required to assist people to safely clean potentially contaminated surfaces, reducing the potential for transmission in their homes and workplaces.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Maridav

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