CIE issues statement on the use of ultraviolet radiation to manage the risk of COVID-19 transmission

There is great international interest in using ultraviolet radiation to manage/intervene the risk of COVID-19 transmission, and this interest is growing rapidly as the epidemic spreads around the world every day. Therefore, CIE issued a position statement on two CIE publications related to UV-C applications that were recently provided free of charge. In the past two months, the content has been viewed more than 10,000 times.

The new CIE position statement summarizes the above two publications and gives the latest insights in this field to explain the use of ultraviolet radiation, especially UV-C (100nm to 280nm) to manage and control the spread of this infectious disease.

Some key points of this position statement are as follows:

UV-C is extremely useful in air and surface disinfection, or water disinfection. However, CIE and WHO warn against using UV disinfection lamps to disinfect hands or any other skin areas (WHO, 2020) unless there is clinical proof.

UV-C is very dangerous to humans and animals, so you can only use products that comply with safety regulations, or use it in a highly controlled situation where safety is the first priority to ensure that it does not exceed ICNIRP (2004) and IEC/CIE (2006).

UV-C can cause photodegradation of materials. This issue should be considered when materials that are susceptible to corrosion (such as plastics) are exposed to the environment.

There is an urgent need for more research on the safety of new UV-C light sources, especially in terms of the safety threshold to avoid photokeratitis (corneal "sunburn", ultraviolet keratitis).

For proper UV assessment and risk management, proper UV radiation measurement must be performed.