A novel antiviral formulation inhibits a range of enveloped viruses.

Nicola F Fletcher; Luke W Meredith; Emma L Tidswell; Steven R Bryden; Daniel Gonçalves-Carneiro; Yasmin Chaudhry; Claire Shannon-Lowe; Michael A Folan; Daniella A Lefteri; Marieke Pingen; Dalan Bailey; Clive S McKimmie; Alan W Baird

The antiviral activity of ViroSAL emulsion may be due to amplified surface area of the water insoluble fatty acid together with the amphipathic nature of the de-lipidised lecithin which facilitates delivery to lipophilic cell surfaces and/or the viral envelope (Laverty et al., 2015) . We observed a significant concentration-and time-dependent (rapid) decrease in infectivity of all enveloped viruses tested in the present study, with no effect on non-enveloped norovirus. Milk-based free fatty acids, as well as fatty acid emulsions, have been shown to inhibit infection of Vero cells with VSV and HSV-1, with no antiviral effect on poliovirus, a non-enveloped virus (Thormar et al., 1987) . Moreover, Isaacs (Isaacs et al., 1990) reported no antiviral activity of human milk or milk formula, but potent antiviral activity of milk aspirated from the stomachs of infants one hour after feeding, which occurred due to the release of free fatty acids by lipolysis. Similar observations were reported by Thormar et al. (Thormar et al., 1994) , after lipolysis by storage of human milk at 4°C.