Intervirology (Sep 2022)

Disinfection effect of hexadecyl pyridinium chloride on SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

  • Ke-da Chen,
  • Fei-ke Ma,
  • Qing-jing Wang,
  • Ying Wang,
  • Xin-yi Zhuang,
  • Xu-ning Zhang,
  • Hai-yan Mao,
  • Yan-jun Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1159/000526241

Abstract

Read online

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV) is a respiratory virus that can exist in the mouth and saliva of patients and spreads through aerosol dispersion. Therefore, stomatological hospitals and departments have become high-infection-risk environments. Accordingly, oral disinfectants that can effectively inactivate the virus have become a highly active area of research. Hexadecyl pyridinium chloride, povidone-iodine, and other common oral disinfectants are the natural primary choices for stomatological hospitals. Therefore, this study investigated the inhibitory effect of hexadecyl pyridinium chloride on SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. Vero cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 were used to determine the disinfection effect; the CCK-8 method was used to determine cytotoxicity, and viral load was determined by real-time PCR. The results showed that hexadecyl pyridinium chloride has no obvious cytotoxic effect on Vero cells in the concentration range 0.0125–0.05 mg/mL. The in vitro experiments showed that hexadecyl pyridinium chloride significantly inhibits the virus at concentrations of 0.1 mg/mL or above at 2 min of action. Thus, the results provide experimental support for the use of hexadecyl pyridinium chloride in stomatological hospitals.