[New guidelines for investigating and evaluating the virucidal activity of disinfectants].

The diversity of viruses that cause human infectious diseases and problems in culturing some of them, such as hepatitis A, B, and C viruses and HIV, necessitate a search for test viruses that are closely resistant to disinfectants. The early methodical documents and the new one "Guidelines for Investigating and Evaluating the Virucidal Activity of Disinfectants" (MY 3.5.2431-08) include poliovirus (vaccine strain) as one of the test viruses. Adenovirus and thermoresistant parvovirus are additionally incorporated in order to harmonize with EN 14476. At least a 4-log10 reduction in test virus titers is taken as a criterion for virucidal activity. The suspension method is recommended for investigations of virucidal activity. The M. P. Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides has proposed human hepatitis A virus to choose disinfectants that are effective for decontamination in hepatitis A and recommended a surrogate virus, namely duck hepatitis B virus, to determine the activity of disinfectants against human hepatitis B (according to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's guidelines). The list of test viruses contains human hepatitis C virus recommended by the D. I. Ivanovsky Research Institute of Virology. Along with the virus, the list also includes bovine viral diarrhea virus that is surrogate for human hepatitis C virus (according to the guidelines of the Society for Control of Viral Diseases and the Robert Koch-Institute, Germany). The optimal time for various objects to be decontaminated is specified when the efficacy of disinfectants is studied.