Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha Variant and Murine Noroviruses on Copper-Silver Nanocomposite Surfaces

Abstract

With the continued scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still seeking out-of-the-box solutions to break its transmission cycle and contain the pandemic. There are different transmission routes for viruses, including indirect transmission via surfaces. To this end, we used two relevant viruses in our study. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing the pandemic and human norovirus (HuNV), both known to be transmitted via surfaces. Several nanoformulations have shown attempts to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses. However, a rigorous, similar inactivation scheme to inactivate the cords of two tedious viruses (SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant and HuNV) is lacking. The present study demonstrates the inactivation of the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant and the decrease in the murine norovirus (MNV, a surrogate to HuNV) load after only one minute of contact to surfaces including copper–silver (Cu–Ag) nanocomposites. We thoroughly examined the physicochemical characteristics of such plated surfaces using diverse microscopy tools and found that Cu was the dominanting element in the tested three different surfaces (~56, ~59, and ~48 wt%, respectively), hence likely playing the major role of Alpha and MNV inactivation followed by the Ag content (~28, ~13, and ~11 wt%, respectively). These findings suggest that the administration of such surfaces within highly congested places (e.g., schools, public transportations, public toilets, and hospital and live-stock reservoirs) could break the SARS-CoV-2 and HuNV transmission. We suggest such an administration after an in-depth examination of the in vitro (especially on skin cells) and in vivo toxicity of the nanocomposite formulations and surfaces while also standardizing the physicochemical parameters, testing protocols, and animal models.