Far-UVC light: A new tool to control the spread of airborne-mediated microbial diseases

David Welch; Manuela Buonanno; Veljko Grilj; Igor Shuryak; Connor Crickmore; Alan W. Bigelow; Gerhard Randers-Pehrson; Gary W. Johnson; David J. Brenner

A direct approach to prevent the transmission of airborne-mediated disease is inactivation of the 30 corresponding airborne pathogens, and in fact the airborne antimicrobial efficacy of ultraviolet (UV) 31 light has long been established 6-8 . Germicidal UV light can also efficiently kill both drug-sensitive and 32 multi-drug-resistant bacteria 9 , as well differing strains of viruses 10 . However, the widespread use of 33 germicidal ultraviolet light in public settings has been very limited because conventional UVC light 34 sources are a human health hazard, being both carcinogenic and cataractogenic 11,12 . 35 By contrast, we have earlier shown that far-UVC light generated by filtered excimer lamps 36 emitting in the 207 to 222 nm wavelength range, efficiently kills drug-resistant bacteria, without 37 apparent harm to exposed mammalian skin [13] [14] [15] . The biophysical reason is that, due to its strong The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. . https://doi.org/10.1101/240408 doi: bioRxiv preprint