Copper, the antiviral that could stand up to Covid-19

Date: 3.04.2020

It is not a vaccine, nor the solution for the coronavirus pandemic that already affects more than 170 countries around the world, but copper, as this team of Chilean researchers wants to demonstrate, can attack the most dangerous part of Covid-19 which is its enormous contagion capacity. “Copper attacks bacteria, fungi and viruses. Any microbe is affected by this metal because what it does is break the outer capsule that all the viral particles have and that makes the virus inactivate and prevent its reproduction ", explains Aarón Cortés, coordinator of the team made up of researchers from the Universidad de Chile and Universidad de los Andes with the support of the Institute of Public Health.

The antimicrobial properties of copper are very powerful, comparable only to gold and silver, but these are much more expensive to work on a large scale. In Chile, the world's largest copper producer, its properties were already known before the pandemic. In fact, the first lines of research came from the mining industry: “Socks and underwear were made with copper fiber for the miners, because they were exposed for many hours in very humid environments and 80% developed pathologies and infections in the feet. Copper fiber clothing had a very significant impact on the improvement of these pathologies, ”explains Cortés. It has also been shown to be effective against other viruses such as Influenza or HIV, among others.

Now research has continued to advance and with the advent of nanotechnology and 3D technology, much more can be done. “One thing that we have learned in studying the effect of copper in antiviral terms is that the smaller the particles, the greater the effect. Therefore, putting a copper foil is useful and a good strategy for instruments and accessories in hospitals, handrails, public transport, etc. But if it is possible to put copper nanoparticles in other materials, for example, masks, the effect is much more powerful and much faster when it comes to inactivating the virus ”, he adds.