A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HUMAN DISINFECTION SYSTEMS IN CONTAINING THE COVID-19 VIRUS AND MITIGATE ITS TRANSMISSION

Abstract

Businesses and commercial buildings have shown greater interest in adopting disinfection systems. They can be found at entrance ways or high-touch surfaces to protect against surface transmission of harmful microbes and viruses. The aim of this paper looks to provide a better understanding on what are the available disinfection systems, in particularly it will focus on two key areas, the first being for human usage that are or may eventually be available in Singapore, and second on how well the disinfection systems work against the recent Covid-19 virus that is causing a global pandemic. The paper sets out to compare and differentiate 2 disinfection systems in their disinfection efficacy and safety viability on human skin and surfaces: namely disinfection tunnels and Ultraviolet disinfection systems. It is possible that the introduction of disinfection systems can provide a multi-layered Covid-19 protective measure. Due to lack of available equipment and laboratory, in addition to the dangerous possibilities of experimenting with viral microbes, no experiment was able to be conducted. A review on literature of the current disinfection practices against the Covid-19 virus, along with relevant past research into disinfection tunnels and UV disinfections systems was carried out from various databases which include internet and other book sources. Data on the 2 systems was supplemented by companies that have conducted research with simulation data and have their products available in the market. A comparison between literature review data and sourced data is done to better evaluate the systems in the absence of experimentation. The 2 disinfection systems are certainly effective in deactivating the Covid-19 virus, safe for human skin and meet local applicability. Contrasting data prevent the UV disinfection system from being fully realized as an efficient system compared to the disinfection tunnel. The low rate of Covid-19 surface transmission also suggests a lower need for these disinfection systems that work by surface disinfection, but having them still adds on to protective measures against the deadly virus, which meets the overarching aim to create a multi-layered approach to Covid-19 protective measures.