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The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a massive demand for products that could combat viruses, dramatically increasing the need for tests to measure their virucidal effectiveness. As companies rushed to get SARS-CoV-2 claims for existing products, new ones emerged, each vying to be the next big thing in virus eradication.
Labs Measure a Product’s Power to Kill Viruses by Tracking cell Damage
Understanding how products are tested to prove they can kill viruses.
- testing a product’s ability to kill viruses involves measuring the damage the virus causes to lab-grown animal cells.
- Unlike bacteria,viruses are not alive and cannot be counted directly using standard microscopy.
- The incubation period for different viruses varies considerably, from 1-2 days for influenza to 7-10 days for SARS-CoV-2.
- This indirect measurement method has remained fundamentally the same for about 100 years.
Testing how well products kill bacteria is pretty straightforward. Scientists take a sample of the bacteria, expose it to the product, and then count how many survive.This is typically done by looking for visible colonies under a microscope, a method known as counting colony-forming units.
Did you know? – Viruses are not alive and cannot be counted directly. Scientists measure their impact by tracking the damage they inflict on animal cells. This indirect method has been used for about a century, even before we fully understood viruses.
This technique works well for living, single-celled organisms that reproduce and sustain themselves. It’s effective for microbes visible with conventional microscopes. Though, viruses are different. They aren’t truly alive and can’t reproduce on their own into countable numbers. they’re also incredibly tiny, requiring a scanning electron microscope to even see them, and not at a scale that helps determine surface cleanliness. You can’t just swab a surface and look for viruses. Actually, we didn’t fully grasp their appearance until the late 1930s with the invention of the electron microscope.
Pro tip: – When evaluating product claims, remember that virucidal effectiveness is measured indirectly. Scientists assess a product’s ability to kill viruses by observing the damage to animal cells. This method requires patience due to the virus’s incubation period.
So, how do labs determine if a product effectively eliminates viruses? They measure the impact, not the virus itself. Specifically, they track the damage the virus inflicts on something countable: animal cells.
Here’s how the process generally works:
- A sample of the virus is applied to the product being tested and left for a specific duration.
- After the set time, the product surface is swabbed to collect any remaining virus particles.
- This swab is then introduced to animal cells grown in a petri dish. The dish is sealed, and scientists wait for the virus’s incubation period. This can range from 1-2 days for influenza to 7-10 days for SARS-CoV-2. During this time, any surviving virus particles will infect and destroy the animal cells.
- Following incubation, the animal cells are examined under a microscope.By counting the number of destroyed cells, researchers can quantify how much of the virus survived the product’s exposure.
Reader question: – How do you think the testing methods for virucidal products could be improved? What are the biggest challenges in accurately measuring a product’s effectiveness against viruses? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This indirect approach allows scientists to assess a product’s virucidal claims. If a virus can’t be measured
