A Statistical Framework for Assessing Heterogeneous Sensitivity of Viruses to Ultraviolet, Ozone, and Free Chlorine

“Disinfection is key to controlling the infection risk caused by viral contamination. Current disinfection guidelines often refer to a single virus resistant to the disinfectant of interest, despite the large variation in sensitivity to disinfectants among viruses or even among strains within the same species. Here, we demonstrate a statistical framework that integrates multiple experimental data sets and model the variation in sensitivity to disinfectants across different virus species using a parametric distribution termed the disinfectant sensitivity distribution. To illustrate this framework, we used 37, 9, and 28 species-dependent inactivation rate constants for ultraviolet (UV), ozone, and free chlorine, respectively, from systematic reviews. We estimated the sensitivity distributions of these disinfectants by incorporating the uncertainty in the individual inactivation rate constants using a Bayesian framework. The estimated sensitivity distributions suggested that it should be possible to achieve 4-log inactivation of 93.0% (95% credible interval (CrI): 84.2%–97.5%), 99.4% (95% CrI: 86.7%–100%), and 95.0% (95% CrI: 85.5%–98.8%) of the examined virus species using UV, ozone, and free chlorine, respectively, if the disinfectant dose complies with the values recommended by the US EPA. The proposed approach provides a reasonable extrapolation of observed inactivation kinetics to untested viruses and tools for more transparent risk assessments.”

(Citation: Yanagihara, M., Smeets, P.W.M.H., Miura, F., Torii, S. – A Statistical Framework for Assessing Heterogeneous Sensitivity of Viruses to Ultraviolet, Ozone, and Free Chlorine – Environmental Science & Technology Letters 12(2025)8, p.904-910 – https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.5c00467 – (Open Access))

Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This article is licensed under CC-BY 4.0