Update on COVID-19 and oral antisepsis

Yet oth­er researchers have come to con­clu­sions sim­i­lar to the one we pub­lished on March 16¹ in a paper pub­lished on June 23, 2020.² The “Results” of their “dis­cus­sion paper” read:

“Oral viral load of SARS-CoV-2 has been asso­ci­at­ed with the sever­i­ty of COVID-19, and thus, a reduc­tion in the oral viral load could be asso­ci­at­ed with a decrease in the sever­i­ty of the con­di­tion. Similarly, a decrease in the oral viral load would dimin­ish the amount of virus expelled and reduce the risk of trans­mis­sion, since (i) dur­ing the first 10 days, the virus main­ly accu­mu­lates at the nasal, oral, and pha­ryn­geal area; (ii) the num­ber of angiotensin-con­vert­ing enzyme (ACE2) recep­tor is greater in the sali­vary glands as com­pared with the lungs; and (iii) sali­vary droplets rep­re­sent the most rel­e­vant trans­mis­sion route. To reduce the oral viral load, anti­sep­tic agents may be used, although the evi­dence on its effi­ca­cy is indi­rect and weak.“

A group of researchers from Italy has seem­ing­ly test­ed part of the hypoth­e­sis, with a stat­ed focus on viral trans­mis­sion pre­ven­tion, in a “pilot study” of at least 39 asymp­to­matic virus car­ri­ers in vivo.³ Their results, obtained with yet oth­er viru­ci­dals than those men­tioned by us, as well as their delib­er­a­tions based on their own results and the avail­able lit­er­a­ture, may appear to sup­port loico’s ini­tial idea. We see sev­er­al rea­sons for cau­tion with regard to the study design, how­ev­er, where exact pro­ce­dures observed would need sig­nif­i­cant fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion. Specifically, the authors do not dis­cuss why they believed that estab­lish­ing a con­trol group was not nec­es­sary, and what prob­a­bil­i­ty they assigned, and why, to the asymp­to­matic car­ri­ers being test­ed neg­a­tive any­way after the three days dur­ing which they were required to apply oral anti­sep­sis.

Similar to the authors cit­ed above, the poten­tial for a role in indi­vid­ual health preser­va­tion is express­ly con­sid­ered in the “Results”:

“Prevention of inner spread. It is also pos­si­ble to con­sid­er that from the sali­va (with its high viral con­tent) while the mouth is act­ing as a viral grow­ing cham­ber, the viral par­ti­cles may be aerosolized into the lungs. The con­tain­ment of viral growth in the mouth may also halt the spread­ing of the virus from the mouth to the tra­chea and into the bronchial tree.“

1. See https://loico.com/the-logic-of-surviving-the-coronavirus-pandemic/; https://loico.com/additional-thoughts-regarding-benefit-throat-disinfection-covid-19-like-epidemics/; https://loico.com/international-researchers-pick-up-loicos-idea-of-throat-disinfection-to-counter-covid-19/; https://loico.com/update-on-preventive-throat-disinfection-antisepsis-to-counter-covid-19/; https://loico.com/some-additional-comments-on-the-design-of-the-study-conducted-by-the-university-of-kentucky/[↩]
2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00784-020-03413-2[↩]
3. https://medclinres.org/pdfs/2020/virucidals-control-the-presence-of-covid-in-mouth-saliva-mcr-20.pdf[↩]