Ozone disinfection for viruses with applications in healthcare environments: a scoping review

The aim of this scoping review was to provide sufficient information about the effectiveness of ozone gas in virus inactivation of surfaces and objects under different environmental conditions. The review was performed according to the list of PRISMA SrC recommendations and the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis for Scoping Reviews. The review was registered in Open Science Framework (OSF). EMBASE (Ovid), Lilacs, LIVIVO, MEDLINE (PubMed), SciELO, Scopus and Web of Science were primary sources, and "gray literature" was searched in OpenGray and OpenThesis. A study was included if it reported primary data on the effect of ozone gas application for vehicle-borne and airborne virus inactivation. No language or publication date restriction was applied. The search was conduct on July 1, 2020. A total of 16,120 studies were screened, and after exclusion of noneligible studies, fifteen studies fulfilled all selection criteria. Application of ozone gas varied in terms of concentration, ozone exposure period and the devices used to generate ozone gas. Twelve studies showed positive results for inactivation of different virus types, including bacteriophages, SARS-CoV-2 surrogates and other vehicle-borne viruses. Most of the studies were classified as unclear regarding sponsorship status. Although most of the population has not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, disinfection of environments, surfaces, and objects is an essential prevention strategy to control the spread of this disease. The results of this Scoping Review demonstrate that ozone gas is promising for viral disinfection of surfaces.