Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 decontamination by dry heat and ultraviolet treatment with a swine coronavirus as a surrogate

The critical need for reliable methods to validate decontamination protocols for personal protective equipment (PPE) for re-use during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is limited by the need for specialized containment facilities to handle the virus. Hence, we have herein validated the use of a swine coronavirus as a surrogate, and tested the effectiveness of dry heat and ultraviolet rays (UV) for PPE decontamination. Exposure of experimentally contaminated N95 masks and hospital gowns to 60oC for 20 mins, and UVC at 1800mJ/cm2 resulted in a 4-log reduction and inactivation of the surrogate virus. This study provides a novel alternative to validate PPE reprocessing methods.