Switching to Ecolox Will Prevent Norovirus Spreading

Cruise lines who want to prevent the spread of the norovirus, which sickened more than 170 people aboard a cruise ship recently, should switch from toxic and eco-unfriendly chlorine-based disinfectants to Ecolox, a completely green, sustainable, non-toxic disinfectant - hypocholrorous acid - which kills Norovirus on contact, a Florida infectious disease physician says. The Ecolox system is produced by International Eco Trade in the U.S.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill have shown convincingly that hypochlorous acid inactivates human norovirus.

The virus that infected several aboard the cruise ship causes epidemics of gastrointestinal diseases with symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. 

Transmission happens from person to person either through direct contact or sharing food, drinks or eating utensils, says Anthony Japour, MD, at Elite Health Medical Group in Miami Beach. The virus is not only transmitted person to person but also through fomites on surfaces aboard cruise ships.

“It can also be transmitted through contaminated food,” Dr Japour says. “Ecolox produces both a disinfectant and a de-greaser that can be used to prevent norovirus contamination of the food they prepare and that you then consume, another route of transmission”, he says.

Hypochlorous acid, through the Ecolox system, can also be used in the spa’s, swimming pools, in fogs and even the potable water aboard ships, as it is completely non-toxic to humans it can be used throughout the entire ship to eliminate norovirus where it hides. 

For over a decade the cruise industry has been plagued by gastroenteritis caused by norovirus and the doctor says it’s time for the cruise industry to “think different”. “Until the cruise industry is willing to embrace real change, the same procedures will lead to the same results.”  The Ecolox system will be presented in December 2014 to an industry-wide gathering on eliminating gastrointestinal diseases from cruises.