Laing Chad, Janzen Timothy, Blinov Vladimir, Volchek Konstantin, Goji Noriko, Thomas Matthew, Telfer Melissa, Rohonczy Elizabeth, Amoako Kingsley K
National Centre for Animal Diseases, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Lethbridge, Canada.
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
Appl Biosaf. 2021 Mar 1;26(1):6-13. doi: 10.1089/apb.20.0067. Epub 2021 Mar 19.
, the etiological agent of anthrax, produces long-lived spores, which are resistant to heat, cold, pH, desiccation, and chemical agents. The spores maintain their ability to produce viable bacteria even after decades, and when inhaled can cause fatal disease in over half of the clinical cases. Owing to these characteristics, anthrax has been repeatedly selected for both bioweapon and bioterrorism use. In the event of a bioterrorism attack, surfaces in the vicinity of the attack will be contaminated, and recovering from such an event requires rapid and effective decontamination. Previous decontamination method development has focused mainly on temperatures >0°C, and have shown poor efficacy at subzero temperatures. In this study, we demonstrate the use of calcium chloride (CaCl) as a freezing point depression agent for pH-adjusted sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for the effective and rapid decontamination of Sterne strain spores at subzero temperatures. We show the complete decontamination of 10 Sterne strain spores at temperatures as low as -20°C within 2.5 min by submersion in solution containing 25% (w/v) CaCl, 0.50% NaOCl, and 0.40% (v/v) acetic acid. We also demonstrate significant reduction in number of spores at -28°C. The results show promise for rapidly decontaminating equipment and materials used in the response to bioterrorism events using readily available consumer chemicals. Future study should examine the efficacy of these results on complex surfaces.
炭疽杆菌是炭疽病的病原体，可产生寿命很长的孢子，这些孢子耐热、耐寒、耐酸碱、耐干燥及化学试剂。即使经过数十年，这些孢子仍保持产生活菌的能力，吸入后在超过半数的临床病例中可导致致命疾病。由于这些特性，炭疽杆菌多次被选用于生物武器和生物恐怖主义。在发生生物恐怖袭击时，袭击附近的表面会被污染，从这种事件中恢复需要快速有效的去污处理。以前的去污方法开发主要集中在温度>0°C时，在零下温度下效果不佳。在本研究中，我们证明了使用氯化钙（CaCl）作为凝固点降低剂，用于调节pH值的次氯酸钠（NaOCl），可在零下温度下有效快速地对斯特恩菌株孢子进行去污处理。我们表明，通过浸没在含有25%（w/v）CaCl、0.50% NaOCl和0.40%（v/v）乙酸的溶液中，在低至-20°C的温度下2.5分钟内可将10个斯特恩菌株孢子完全去污。我们还证明在-28°C时孢子数量显著减少。结果表明，使用现成的消费化学品对用于应对生物恐怖主义事件的设备和材料进行快速去污处理具有前景。未来的研究应检验这些结果在复杂表面上的有效性。
