Monday, April 09, 2007

New study shows UV effective against H5N1

One of the things that differentiates my firm from others doing the same thing is that we are committed to real science. When concerns began to mount over the potential of pandemic influenza, many competitors jumped on the bandwagon and claimed they could 'kill' the H5N1 virus.

That's until you read the small print and determined that they tested their systems against a 'surrogate' virus. Why a surrogate? It's a lot cheaper and easier to test a pathogen that is 'like' highly pathogenic H5N1. But when you cut corners in this manner, it prevents you from truly designing your system to provide the proper dose of UV needed to deactivate the target microorganism.

That's why I am proud to announce the results of our testing involving UVGI deactivation of H5N1. Yes, it took extra time and resources, but the pursuit of predictable outcomes makes all our efforts worth while. In a nutshell, VIGILAIR was effective in deactivating live H5N1 viruses (the Vietnam strain). Although we are unable to share all the results at this time, we can say that the real H5N1 virus differs from influenza A, in respects to UV-C. This is the first time that such testing has been performed. VIGILAIR has also successfully deactivated SARS and anthrax...the real stuff, not just surrogates.