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. 2022 Feb 8;11(2):226.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens11020226.

Illuminating Human Norovirus: A Perspective on Disinfection of Water and Surfaces Using UVC, Norovirus Model Organisms, and Radiation Safety Considerations

Richard M Mariita  1 , James H Davis  1 , Rajul V Randive  1
Affiliations

Illuminating Human Norovirus: A Perspective on Disinfection of Water and Surfaces Using UVC, Norovirus Model Organisms, and Radiation Safety Considerations

Richard M Mariita et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are a major cause of gastroenteritis and are associated with high morbidity because of their ability to survive in the environment and small inoculum size required for infection. Norovirus is transmitted through water, food, high touch-surfaces, and human-to-human contact. Ultraviolet Subtype C (UVC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can disrupt the norovirus transmission chain for water, food, and surfaces. Here, we illuminate considerations to be adhered to when picking norovirus surrogates for disinfection studies and shine light on effective use of UVC for norovirus infection control in water and air and validation for such systems and explore the blind spot of radiation safety considerations when using UVC disinfection strategies. This perspective also discusses the promise of UVC for norovirus mitigation to save and ease life.

Keywords: LEDs; UVC; disinfection; human norovirus; model organisms; physicochemical parameters; public health; radiation safety.

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Conflict of interest statement

R.M.M., J.H.D. and R.V.R. all receive salaries from Crystal IS, an Asahi Kasei company that manufactures UVC-LEDs.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phylogenetic diversity of HuNoV GII.2 strains based on major capsid protein VP1 depicting lineages in genogroups. Inner circle shows geographic location, while outer cycle shows phylogenetic clusters. Maximum likelihood was used to infer phylogeny using 519 VP1 gene sequences. List of GenBank accession numbers have been provided in supplementary Table S1 of Li et al. [5]. Figure reused from Li et al. [5] under Creative Commons CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (accessed on 11 January 2022).
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