Virucidal Efficacy of Olanexidine Gluconate as a Hand Antiseptic Against Human Norovirus

Abstract

Human noroviruses are the major cause of non-bacterial acute gastroenteritis worldwide. Since no therapeutic agent has been proven to prevent human norovirus infection yet, preventive healthcare interventions to block the infection routes play an important role in infection control. One of the possible infection routes of human noroviruses are through contaminated hands, but no hand antiseptics have been proven effective. Olanexidine gluconate is a new biguanide compound that has already been approved for sale as an antiseptic for the surgical field in Japan. A new hand antiseptic was developed using olanexidine gluconate in this study, and its virucidal efficacy against human noroviruses was evaluated using modified RT-qPCR that can account for genome derived from intact viruses using RNase A and photo-reactive intercalators. We tested the virucidal efficacy of five materials; two olanexidine gluconate antiseptics (hand rub formulation and surgical field formulation), two kinds of ethanol solutions at different pH (approx. 3 or 7), and a base component of olanexidine gluconate hand rub formulation against 11 human norovirus genotypes by culture-independent methods. The infectivity of murine norovirus (MNV), a surrogate for human norovirus, was significantly reduced after use of the antiseptics. The olanexidine gluconate hand rub demonstrated the strongest virucidal efficacy against human norovirus among the five tested materials. This study showed that olanexidine gluconate has the potential to become a strong tool for the prevention of human norovirus infection.

Alcohol abrogates human norovirus infectivity in a pH-dependent manner

“…Although some studies have reported that the level of HuNoV decontamination is determined by viral genome RNA reduction using culture-independent methods 8 – 10 , it has also been reported that there is no relationship between actual HuNoV propagative activity and the reduction of viral genomes 11 . Therefore, even if viral genome reduction is observed, it is possible that HuNoVs are propagated.…”

Olanexidine gluconate formulations as environmental disinfectants for enveloped viruses infection control

“…1.5% OLG (Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory Inc., Tokushima, Japan) was used undiluted or diluted with distilled water to 0.5% w/v (0.5% OLG) before use. OLG-HR (Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory Inc.) and ethanol for disinfection (EtOH; Kenei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Osaka, Japan) were used undiluted [1]. Benzalkonium chloride (OSVAN disinfectant 10%; Nihon Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Tokyo, Japan) and chlorhexidine gluconate (HIBITANE; Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd, Osaka, Japan) were diluted with distilled water to 0.1% w/v (0.1% BZC) and 0.5% w/v (0.5% CHG), respectively, before use.…”

“…In the neutralization method, 100 mL of the reaction mixtures was mixed with 900 mL of neutralizer (composition: 1.67% w/v K 2 HPO 4 , 0.06% w/v KH 2 PO 4 , 0.1% v/v Triton X-100, 1.17% w/v Soy lecithin, 10% w/v polysorbate 80, 0.5% w/v sodium thiosulfate hydrate, 1% w/v Tamol NN8906, and then the pH was adjusted at 7.8e7.9). With the gel filtration method, 100 mL of the reaction mixtures was diluted with 900 mL of PBS, and immediately were sieved through a gel filtration column (Columns filled with Sephacryl S-400; GE Healthcare, NJ, USA) [1,2,5]. The neutralized solutions were then serially diluted 10fold with culture media.…”

“…Olanexidine gluconate (1-(3,4-dichlorobenzyl)-5-octylbig uanide gluconate; OLG) is an antimicrobial compound and aqueous formulation of 1.5% OLG has been used in Japan clinically for preoperative skin preparation. We previously reported the virucidal efficacy of 1.5% OLG and a new olanexidine-containing 70% ethanol formulation for hand hygiene (OLG-HR) against noroviruses, which indicated that OLG-HR had more potent virucidal activity than ethanol for disinfection [1]. However, an evaluation of the virucidal spectrum of olanexidine formulation on enveloped viruses has not been performed.…”

Disinfection efficacy and mechanism of olanexidine gluconate against norovirus

“…In clinical trials, Obara et al reported that 1.5% OLG significantly reduced the occurrence of overall surgical site infections (SSIs) and superficial SSIs compared with PVP-I in cleancontaminated surgery 2 . Additionally, the findings of previous studies showed that 1.5% olanexidine-containing 70% ethanol formulation for hand hygiene (OLG hand rub; OLG-HR) was more virucidal than ethanol against human noroviruses 3,4 .…”