Whaddaya know! Trump jumped the gun but UVC lamps could truly kill Covid-19
Could a new kind of ultraviolet lamps be utilized in stations, airplanes and academic institutions to destroy dangerous viruses, learning to be a gamechanger in the COVID-19 fight?
Researchers in Columbia University have been working on such uses for a long time, and the existing pandemic could confirm the worthiness of their efforts.
UVC lamps have long been used to kill bacteria, viruses and molds, notably found in hospitals and in the food-processing industry. As the coronavirus pandemic knocks community economies on their heels, this technology is normally experiencing a boom.
But UVC (for Ultraviolet-C) rays are dangerous, triggering skin cancer and eyes complications, and can be used only when no person is present.
The New York subway system, following the exemplory case of Chinese subways, plans to use ultraviolet lamps to disinfect its trains, but only during nighttime closures.
A team at Columbia’s Centre for Radiological Research is tinkering with so-called far-UVC, rays whose wavelength of 222 nanometers produces them safe and sound for humans but still lethal to viruses, the center’s director, David Brenner, told AFP.
At those frequencies, he discussed, the rays cannot penetrate the top of epidermis nor of the attention.
That means they could be used in closed and crowded spaces where contamination risks run huge, with potentially huge guarantee for use during the current pandemic.
In late April, President Donald Trump offered confusing remarks about somehow projecting ultraviolet rays into people’s bodies to eliminate the coronavirus.
He were inspired by federal research on the consequences of natural light about the virus-but natural light does not have any UVC rays.
In 2013, the Columbia team started studying the potency of far-UVC against drug-resistant bacteria. It next examined the rays’ use against viruses, like the flu virus. Only recently achieved it turn its attention to the coronavirus.
“We had been thinking, how can we apply what we will be doing to the present situation,” Brenner said.
But to test the influence of UVC in the extremely contagious coronavirus, the workforce had to go its equipment right into a highly bio-secure laboratory in Columbia.
Experiments carried out starting “three-four weeks hence,” Brenner said, have already made clear that UVC rays destroy the virus on surfaces within a few minutes.
The team next plans to test the lights on viruses suspended in the air, as when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
In parallel, tests are being conducted to confirm these rays are harmless to humans.
For 40 weeks nowadays, the lab has exposed mice to far-UVC rays for “eight time a day, five times weekly, at intensities 20 moments greater than we might think of using with humans.”
The results?
After testing the rodents’ eyes and skin, “we have found absolutely nothing; the mice are extremely happy-and very cute as well,” Brenner said.
The experiment is defined to continue for 20 extra weeks.
The findings cannot be fully validated by the scientific community until all remaining steps have already been taken, regardless if the team has already submitted its preliminary results to the journal Nature.
‘The world has changed’
However the pressure to reopen the world’s economies is becoming so enormous that factories are accelerating their development of ultraviolet lights without waiting.
“We really need something in conditions like office buildings, restaurants, airplanes, hospitals,” Brenner said.
If UVC lamps have been completely in business use for two or three years-notably in the precious stone industry, where they can be utilised to distinguish artificial from legitimate gems-potential clients are actually legion, say companies creating them.
“We felt for years this is an excellent application because of this technology,” said John Yerger, the CEO of Eden Park Lighting, a small producer located in Champaign, Illinois.
But with the pandemic, “the environment has changed a whole lot in the last 90 days,” he added.
And the united states Food and Drug Administration has relaxed its regulation of equipment or agents that can be utilised for disinfection, encouraging manufacturers to discover a solution.
“There will be thousands of the things (UVC lamps) for certain,” Yerger said. “The question is, might it be millions?”
“What we are seeing is a significant amount of customer interest” to produce lights for airlines, cruise lines, restaurants, concert halls and institutions, said Shinji Kameda, chief operations officer in the US for Ushio, a good Japanese manufacturer.
Production of its 222-nanometer lights, sold for $500 to $800 and already found in some Japanese hospitals, might be stepped up found in October, he said.
For the time being, Brenner said he has been losing sleep.
“I spend nights thinking-if this far-UVC project had started a couple of years earlier, maybe we're able to possess prevented the COVID-19 crisis,” he said.
“Not completely, but maybe we're able to have prevented it being truly a pandemic.”
