Southern Naval Command develops Germicidal Chamber to check spread of COVID-19

Mumbai: The Naval Institute of Aeronautical Technology (NIAT), under the Southern Naval Command (SNC) at Kochi has designed and fabricated low-cost Germicidal Chambers for arresting the likelihood of secondary mode of transmission through contaminated surfaces used by COVID-19 infected personnel.

The chambers have been customized for sanitizing personal baggage, office files, personal protective items masks, gloves, helmets and electronic items like phones, laptops, chargers by inactivating microorganisms such as Bacteria, Virus, Molds and other Pathogens.

Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) is a disinfection method that uses short-wavelength ultraviolet (UV-C) light to kill or inactivate microorganisms by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA. The optimal wavelength for disinfection is in range of 190-280 nm (UV-C). The required dosage of UV-C was formulated using in-house resources based on the study conducted by the Institute of Virology, Germany.

The customised multipurpose germicidal chamber has the peculiarity of adjusting the exposure time with help of operating time from 10 seconds to 40 minutes with auto cut-off system and has an inbuilt safety mechanism to prevent untoward exposure of UV-C rays. The design has incorporated inbuilt safety features to avoid direct exposure of UV-C rays during the process of sanitization.

The Germicidal chamber was subjected to multiple sanitization tests at the microbiology lab in INHS Sanjivani to prove its effectiveness and has successfully sterilized colony of E-coli bacteria, the strain of bacterial swabs and has disinfected urine samples.

These multipurpose chambers are built at one-tenth approximately in the range of Rs 25,000-30,000 of the cost of commercially available units and can serve as an effective tool against contamination or infection from a secondary mode of transmission.