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Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.00110-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Characterization of UVC light sensitivity of Vaccinia Virus

Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, 01854

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: Donald_Milton{at}uml.edu.

	Abstract

Interest in airborne smallpox transmission has been renewed due to concerns regarding potential use of smallpox virus as bio-threat agents. Air disinfection via upper-room 254 nm germicidal ultraviolet (UVC) light in public buildings may reduce the impact of primary agent releases, prevent secondary airborne transmission, and be effective prior to the time when public health authorities are aware of a smallpox outbreak. We characterized the susceptibility of vaccinia aerosols, as a surrogate for smallpox, to UVC light using a benchtop, one-pass aerosol chamber. We evaluated virus susceptibility to: UVC doses ranging from 0.1 to 3.2 J/m², three relative humidity levels (20%, 60%, 80%), and suspensions of virus in either water or synthetic respiratory fluid. Dose response plots show vaccinia virus susceptibility increased with decreasing relative humidity. These plots also show a significant non-linear component and poor fit using a first-order decay model, but show reasonable fit when we assumed virus susceptibility follows a log-normal distribution. The overall effects of RH (p < 0.0001), and suspending medium (p = 0.014) were statistically significant. When controlling for suspending medium the RH remained a significant factor (p < 0.0001), and the effect of suspending medium was significant overall (p < 0.0001) after controlling for RH. Virus susceptibility did not appear to be a function of virus particle size. This work provides an essential scientific basis for designing effective upper-room UVC installations for the prevention of airborne infection transmission of smallpox virus by characterizing the susceptibility of an important orthopox virus to UVC exposure.

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