Title : Iodox: a granular scatter disinfectant characterized by quick effectiveness and long-lasting durability. Application as a disinfectant against livestock infectious diseases and infectious pathogens
Abstract:
Since the end of 20th century, outbreaks of such emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases as avian influenza, classical swine fever (CSF), African swine fever (ASF), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have successively occurred in the world. These diseases are causing serious consequences both to animals and humans, and also triggered economic and social crises. Since all of these diseases are zoonosis, causative agents are transmitted from animals to humans, and it is needed to establish disease control strategies other than ones involving only human-to-human transmission.
In Japan, since 1949, in compliance with the "Act on Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control", slaked lime has been used as exclusive treatment for livestock quarantine (and now 70 years have passed). Although its efficacy due to the strong alkalinity is acknowledged, after spread in the environment slaked lime readily reacts with carbon dioxide in the air (carbonation), undergoing a pH decrease and a fall of disinfection efficiency. Therefore, the development of an alternative disinfectant capable to overcome the disadvantages of slaked lime is an important challenge.
In order to achieve this objective, we produced an innovative disinfectant material called Iodox® (Fig.1), made by binding iodate on volcanic pumice rocks pebbles (for example Hyuga-Soil, Kanuma-soil, etc.). Such pebbles, being commonly used for gardening, are cheap and an all-natural component for our material.
Iodox® disinfectant shows a long-lasting sanitizing efficiency (antibacterial and antiviral) when exposed to air, which is not compromised if short rains occur. Indeed, even if the disinfectant component of Iodox® elutes from the pebbles due to rainfall, the sanitizing function persists since it will bind to the surrounding soil. According to the test conducted on the H5 avian influenza virus, Iodox® can reduce the viral titer to 1/10,000,000 in just 10 minutes.
Our research showed that novel approaches and strategies can be applied to the management and the control of infectious diseases spreading. In addition to farming and veterinary medicine purposes, Iodox® may be applied to human medicine applications and environmental hygiene.
