Want to kill monkeypox? 60 degrees could do the trick
The monkeypox virus can be killed at a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, a senior virologist said, citing international research.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Dr Anan Jongkaewwattana, director of the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology’s Veterinary Health Innovation and Management Research Group, talked about what temperatures can zap the virus.
Anan noted that the monkeypox virus is in the poxvirus group, which is believed to survive better than other viruses, especially the RNA variety such as Covid-19.
However, researchers had questioned how the monkeypox virus was different to other poxviruses that had affected humans in the past. They also wanted to know if a DNA virus could endure temperatures better than a RNA virus.
A French research team therefore took a sample from patients infected with Clade B of monkeypox to compare it with Clade A, which is more severe but has not spread outside Africa, so far at least.
Anan cited research titled “Heat inactivation of the monkeypox virus”, which was published on the bioRxiv website https://bit.ly/3pqrO2Q on August 10.
Following research, scientists found both clades of monkeypox were inactivated at 60 degrees Celsius in less than 15 minutes, while at 70 degrees it took less than five minutes.
Most interestingly, it took three minutes to kill the virus at 95 degrees, so dipping it into hot water for 30 seconds has no effect.
The study also noted that the virus was not completely destroyed at 56 degrees for 30 minutes
Anan added that hot temperatures cannot kill monkeypox instantly because they could not obliterate the virus’s DNA.
