Ionizing radiation as a technology for virus inactivation

Abstract

Finding accessible and efficient ways to inactivate pathogens, and thus reduce their harmful consequences for the population, is an issue that challenges public administrators and the scientific community. Ionizing radiation is a physical method that destroys nucleic acids and inhibits viral replication, maintaining its immunogenicity, without requiring all the necessary steps to detoxify cultures from chemical processes, which facilitates the handling of antigens in a level 2 safety laboratory We observed different doses for each virus depending on conditions related to sample preparation, temperature, humidity, lack of oxygen, dose rate and penetration (physical state of the material); and also to the virus itself, such as genomic size. The radioresistance present in bacterial viruses and spores was also a relevant factor observed in the literature regarding the sterilization of hospital materials as it affects some polymeric structures of polypropylene in disposable masks, whose solution was the use of time-dependent non-ionizing radiation, the ultra violet (UV – C). Therefore, despite being a more costly method, the practicality of the process, which is continuous, with no residuals and the safety promoted by the non-smoothness of the package, allows the competitiveness of ionizing radiation against the methods that exist both in the sterilization of inputs and for the production of vaccines through viral inactivation.