HOCl As a Microbicidal Agent

An Overview

Scientific, medical, and professional journals list many peer-reviewed articles describing the efficacy of HOCl in killing pathogens. One medical dictionary describes a pathogen as an agent that causes disease, especially a virus, bacterium, or fungus¹. Another medical dictionary describes a microbicide as an agent that kills microscopic organisms (bacteria, fungi, and viruses)². These definitions – and the peer-reviewed literature – confirm that HOCl is an effective microbicidal agent against many types of bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

Attributes

Studies show HOCl to be an effective microbicidal agent while it also is non-toxic, non-irritating, and non-corrosive at proper usage concentrations³. HOCl also has other advantages over other microbicidal agents such as sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂0₂). It causes less irritation, and is less cytotoxic, if used at proper concentrations. HOCl works best between pH levels of 3 to 6. HOCl efficacy is often affected by its shelf life⁴.

Research

Research on HOCl as a microbicidal agent is classified according to whether it’s used to combat bacteria, virus, or fungi. For bacteria, there are articles on Bacillus SPP, Campylobacter SPP, Enterobacter SPP, Enterococcus SPP, Escherichia Coli, Listeria SPP, Mycobacterium SPP, Pseudomonas SPP, Salmonella SPP, Staphylococcus SPP, Streptomyces SPP, and Vibrio SPP. For viruses, there are articles on Hepadnavirus, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, Influenza Viruses, all Viruses, Norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2. For fungi, there are articles on Aspergillus SPP, Candida SPP, Penicillium SPP, and all Fungi.

Future articles will feature each of these pathogens.