Mouthwash will help stop coronavirus

Irina Ziganshina

Employees of the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and Brigham Young University, Utah, have tested several mouthwash and nasopharyngeal rinses in a laboratory for their ability to inactivate coronaviruses similar in genetic makeup to SARS-CoV-2. The results are published in the Journal of Medical Virology.

Scientists treated the solution containing the coronavirus strain with a 1% solution of baby shampoo and various mouth rinses, allowing them to interact for some time. Then, in order to measure the degree of inactivation of the virus, the solutions were left in contact with cultured human cells for several days and the number of cells remained alive was counted.

It turned out that a 1% solution of baby shampoo, which otolaryngologists sometimes prescribe for washing the sinuses, can inactivate more than 99.9% of the human coronavirus in two minutes, and some special mouthwashes inactivated 99.99% of the virus after 30 seconds...

This confirms the results of previous studies showing that, under similar experimental conditions, certain types of mouth rinses can inactivate SARS-CoV-2. The next step will be clinical trials to see if gargles can lower viral load in COVID-19 patients. Such prevention can be especially important for relatives of people who are already sick with covid or those who, by the nature of their work, are at constant risk of infection, such as doctors. As you know, the nasal and oral cavity are the main points of penetration of coronaviruses into the body.