Type of Hepatitis	Virus	Type of Virus	Mode of Transmission
Hepatitis A	HAV	Non-enveloped	Fecal-oral route
Hepatitis B	HBV	Enveloped	Perinatal transmission or sexual contact
Hepatitis C	HCV	Enveloped	Contact with blood
Hepatitis D	HDV	Enveloped	Contact with blood, only occurs in those infected with HBV
Hepatitis E	HEV	Non-enveloped	Fecal-oral route

Why exactly is this information important to the infection protection and control field? As we can see, the risk of contracting the hepatitis virus is always there—from poor sanitation during food preparation to exposure to the blood of an infected person especially in the healthcare sector. Therefore, having disinfectants that are effective in lessening the opportunity for consumers to be infected seems to be an important factor especially for disinfectants used in the food and healthcare settings.

“You know Johnathan, Michelle has a point here, why don’t we send our surface disinfectants to TECOLAB for testing against hepatitis? Lemme give them a call!”—Let’s discuss the efficacy testing strategy for hepatitis A, B and C viruses which are the most common hepatitis globally.

 

Testing Strategy for Hepatitis Virus

Hepatitis A—The Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is a non-enveloped virus with a high resistance towards a wide range of chemical disinfectants. Some of the most common disinfectant active substances such as phenolics, alcohols, and various acids have been proven ineffective in inactivating HAV. In some cases, HAV could also be more resistant when compared to Poliovirus 1, which is one of the obligatory representative virus strains in EN 14476. So, how can we test that our disinfectant is effective against Hepatitis A? Since Hepatitis A virus can cause cytopathic effect in cell lines—that is, the morphological changes in cells caused by viral infection—it is an easy answer and that is through EN 14476 for virucidal activity against hepatitis A virus. We have the surrogate strain Hepatitis A virus ATCC VR-1402 available for request in our lab.

Hepatitis B—HBV is a non-cultivable virus, meaning that they do not replicate sufficiently in cell culture systems and it also does not cause direct cytopathic effect to cells. In other words, it does not directly damage the cells. Therefore, we are unable to adopt similar test methods to evaluate virucidal activity as for HAV. In order to test for virucidal activity against HBV, duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV), a surrogate strain, is used and the virus is quantified by employing the quantitative RT-PCR methodology. However, testing for efficacy against Hepatitis B virus may be a path less taken, not only due to the complexity of the testing method but also due to the fact that hepatitis B is mainly transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or via sexual transmission. Therefore, prevention for hepatitis B does not lie in maintaining good sanitization and personal hygiene through disinfection. Does this mean there is no way to claim effectiveness against the Hepatitis B virus? Not exactly, as products can still prove their efficacy against HBV by obtaining full virucidal activity claim which encompasses all enveloped and non-enveloped viruses including the hepatitis viruses as well.

Hepatitis C—Similar to HBV, HCV also is a non-cultivable virus and does not cause direct cytopathic effect to cells. However, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) can be used as a surrogate virus to test for efficacy against Hepatitis C virus. This can be done similar to testing for Hepatitis A virus by observing the cytopathic effect in cell lines via EN 14476 for virucidal activity against the surrogate virus BVDV 1. Did you know that BVDV 1 ATCC VR-534 is in our microorganism library as well?

Let’s recap the above together! Here’s what our experts would suggest!