Many manufactured products are critical to protecting, promoting and enhancing life. Especially now, as the coronavirus makes its way around the world and governments struggle to contain it, doctors and people are put at risk infection. The COVID-19 pandemic creates unprecedented pressure on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE), medical devices and laboratory supplies. Some of them should be sterile. Radiation sterilization is widely applied in routine commercial services, and might be used to sterilization of these products. Last years viral inactivation of SARS-Cov (wit SARS-Cov2 this year) and MERS-CoV, by radiation technique was reported. In general, radiation technology comprising both gamma irradiators and high energy accelerators are yielding tremendous industrial and societal benefits in the fields of polymer, healthcare, food and environment.
Radiation sterilization has many advantages including:
- high efficiency of inactivation of pathogens,
- irreversible damage to microorganisms walls and their genetic material (nucleic acids),
- good penetration and practically even distribution of ionizing radiation, especially gamma, in sterilized devices,
- the possibility of sterilization in closed target packaging, which eliminates the risk of secondary infection,
- not introducing foreign substances, except energy, into sterilized material
- short time of processing
However, dissemination of knowledge about this technique is still insufficient.