Tests Show UVC Lamps Could Light The Way In Fighting Coronavirus

A UV cleaning robot cleans the floor near the windows at the Pittsburgh International Airport on May 7, 2020 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh International Airport has put UVC accessories in its floor cleaning robots, making it the first airport in the United States to test the use of ultraviolet rays to remove coronavirus from surfaces. If effective, UV cleaning robots could be a model for other airports, as they plan to reopen and try to persuade people to travel again. Jeff Swensen / Getty Images / AFP

NEW YORK, United States – Could a new type of UV lamp be used in stations, planes and schools to kill dangerous viruses, becoming a game changer in the COVID-19 fight?

Columbia University researchers have been working on such uses for years, and the current pandemic could confirm the value of their efforts.

UVC lamps have long been used to kill bacteria, viruses, and molds, especially in hospitals and in the food processing industry. As the coronavirus pandemic hits global economies, this technology is booming.

But UVC rays (for Ultraviolet-C) are dangerous, cause skin cancer and eye problems, and can only be used when no one is present.

The New York subway system, following the example of Chinese subways, plans to use ultraviolet lamps to disinfect its trains, but only during night closings.

A team at the Columbia Radiological Research Center is experimenting with so-called far-off UVC rays, whose wavelength of 222 nanometers makes them safe for humans but lethal for viruses, the center’s director, David Brenner, told AFP.

At these frequencies, he explained, rays cannot penetrate the surface of the skin or the eye.

That means they could be used in crowded, confined spaces where the risks of contamination are high, with potentially enormous promise of use during the current pandemic.

In late April, President Donald Trump offered confusing remarks about the projection of ultraviolet rays on people’s bodies to kill the coronavirus.

It appeared to be inspired by the federal investigation into the effects of natural light on the virus, but natural light does not have UVC rays.

In 2013, the Columbia team began studying the effectiveness of far UVC against drug-resistant bacteria. He then examined the use of beams against viruses, including the flu virus. Only recently did he turn his attention to the coronavirus.

“We were thinking, how can we apply what we are doing to the current situation,” said Brenner.

But to test UVC’s impact on the extremely contagious coronavirus, the team had to move their equipment to a highly secure laboratory in Columbia.

Experiments done “three to four weeks ago,” Brenner said, have already made it clear that UVC rays destroy the virus on surfaces in a matter of minutes.

The team then plans to test the airborne virus lamps, such as when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

In parallel, tests are carried out to confirm that these rays are harmless to humans.

For 40 weeks, the lab has exposed mice to distant UVC rays for “eight hours a day, five days a week, at intensities 20 times higher 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 very happy and very cute too,” said Brenner.

The experiment will continue for an additional 20 weeks.

The scientific community cannot fully validate the findings until all the remaining steps have been taken, even if the team has already presented their preliminary results to the journal Nature.

“The world has changed”

But the pressure to reopen world economies has become so enormous that factories are speeding up their production of UV lamps without waiting.

“We really need something in situations like offices, restaurants, planes, hospitals,” said Brenner.

If UVC lamps have already been in commercial use for two to three years, especially in the diamond industry, where they can be used to distinguish artificial gems from real gems, potential customers are now legion, the companies that produce them say.

“We have long felt that this is a great application for this technology,” said John Yerger, CEO of Eden Park Illumination, a small producer based in Champaign, Illinois.

But with the pandemic, “the world has changed a lot in the past three months,” he added.

And the US Food and Drug Administration. USA It has relaxed its regulation of tools or agents that can be used for disinfection, encouraging manufacturers to find a solution.

“There will surely be thousands and thousands of these things (UVC lamps),” said Yerger. “The question is, will it be millions?”

“What we are seeing is a lot of customer interest” to produce lamps for airlines, cruise ships, restaurants, movie theaters and schools, said Shinji Kameda, director of US operations for Ushio, a Japanese manufacturer.

Production of its 222-nanometer lamps, sold for $ 500 to $ 800 and already used in some Japanese hospitals, will intensify in October, he said.

Meanwhile, Brenner said he has been losing sleep.

“I spend the nights thinking: If this distant UVC project had started a year or two earlier, perhaps we could have avoided the COVID-19 crisis,” he said.

“Not entirely, but maybe we could have prevented it from being a pandemic.”

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