Practical use of povidone-iodine antiseptic in the maintenance of oral health and in the prevention and treatment of common oropharyngeal infections

Kanagalingam, J.; Feliciano, R.; Hah, J. H.; Labib, H.; Le, T. A.; Lin, J.-C.

Povidone-iodine has been reported as having the highest virucidal activity profile among several antiseptics such as CHG, benzalkonium chloride (BAC), BEC and alkyldiaminoethyl-glycine hydrochloride (AEG) (37) . Using a standardised in vitro approach, PVP-I gargle was found to inactivate a panel of viruses that included adenovirus, mumps, rotavirus, poliovirus (types 1 and 3), coxsackie virus, rhinovirus, herpes simplex virus, rubella, measles, influenza and human immunodeficiency virus. In this study, CHG, BAC, BEC and AEG were ineffective against adenovirus, polio virus and rhinovirus but generally showed activity against the other aforementioned viruses (37) . In a more recent study, PVP-I products, that included gargle and throat spray, demonstrated rapid virucidal activity against both a highly pathogenic (H5N1) and low pathogenic (H5N3, H7N7 and H9N2) strains of avian influenza A viruses, with viral titres falling below the detection limits of the assay with only 10 s of PVP-I incubation (38) . Similarly, these formulations also showed efficacy against a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus strain, with PVP-I mediating rapid inactivation of the virus (2 min of treatment) (39) . Furthermore, the results of a study confirmed the virucidal efficacy of PVP-I products including PVP-I gargle against swine influenza viruses (H1N1, H3N2 and H1N2) (40) .