Gone in a Flash: Brief Exposure to Heat Can Thwart COVID-19, Scientists Say

The new heat-based neutralisation method may also possibly be employed to help combat other pathogens, such as influenza.

A team of researchers led by Arum Han from Texas A&M University has managed to confirm that exposing SARS-CoV-2 to high temperature for a very brief period of time results in neutralisation of the pathogen, phys.org reports.

The experiment conducted by Han and his colleagues involved heating a section of  a stainless steel tube through which a solution containing the coronavirus was being run, and immediately cooling that section afterwards.

According to the media outlet, while previous studies have already displayed heat’s effectiveness in neutralising the coronavirus, they involved application of high temperatures “from anywhere from one to 20 minutes.”

Han, however, now postulates that heating the coronavirus solution to about 72 degrees Celsius for about half a second can reduce the quantity of the pathogen in that solution by 100,000 times, thus neutralising it and preventing transmission.

The research team also expects that this method can also be implemented to deal with other pathogens.

Sourse: sputniknews.com