The Lesson Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Can an Active Chemical Be Effective, Safe, Harmless-for-Humans and Low-Cost at a Time? Evidence on Aerosolized Hypochlorous Acid.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of disinfectants as tools to prevent and fight against coronavirus spreading. An ideal disinfectant and sanitizer must be nontoxic to surface contact, noncorrosive, effective, and relatively inexpensive as it is hypochlorous acid (HOCl). The present work intended to evaluate, on different surfaces, the bactericidal and virucidal effectiveness of nebulized HOCl and test its safety usage in 2D and 3D skin and lung models. Our data showed that HOCl at the dose of 300 ppm did not affect cellular and tissue viability, not their morphology. The HOCl bactericidal properties varies with the surface analyzed: 69% for semi-porous, 96-99.9% for flat and porous. This discrepancy was not noticed for the virucidal properties. Overall, this study showed that nebulized HOCl can prevent virus and bacteria growth without affecting lung and skin tissues, making this compound a perfect candidate to sanitize indoor environments.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV2 in IBD Patients Treated with Biologic Therapy.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A similar course of COVID-19 in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD] and in the general population has been reported. However, disease prevalence in IBD patients is presently unknown. In this prospective observational study, we aimed at determining SARS-CoV2 infection prevalence in IBD patients treated with biologic therapy. METHODS: From IBD patients under biologic therapy and recruited from three different locations in Italy and Germany, 354 sera were evaluated for antibody presence by RBD ELISA. Control groups were: i] age-matched healthy subjects tested in the same time period in Milan, Italy; ii] healthy subjects collected in the pre-COVID era; iii] IBD patients under biologic therapy collected in the pre-COVID era. RESULTS: Eight out of 354 patients tested positive for the anti-RBD-SARS-CoV2 IgG antibody [prevalence 2.3%]. The percentage of IgG-positive patients among those recruited from Milan was significantly higher than among those recruited from other locations [prevalence 5.4% vs 0.4%, p <0.005]. IgG-positive patients reported a significantly higher incidence of fever, anosmia, and ageusia, and were more likely to have entered into close contact with COVID-19-positive subjects before the study enrolment. CONCLUSIONS: Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV2 in IBD patients treated with biologic therapy reflects values measured in the local general population. Specific symptoms and contact history with SARS-CoV2-infected individuals strongly increase the likelihood of SARS-CoV2 seropositivity.