• Weekly nasal photodisinfection of 1,500 workers in a meat processing plant in Western Canada reduced infection rate to only 0.5% during a seven-month period (December 2020 to May 2021). During the same period, the provincial rate was 6.4%. This data indicates the infectivity rate of the treated population was reduced by 91.54%.
• No serious side effects from the nasal photodisinfection (total of 21,459 treatments) were recorded.
• Prior to the availability of vaccines, global meat processing plants were adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic due to close working conditions, with many Canadian meat processing plants experiencing severe disruption or closure.

Newly published research in the journal Public Health Practice shows that a weekly program of nasal photodisinfection implemented at a major Western Canada meat packing plant, alongside standard safety measures recommended by the US Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (“CDC”), reduced the COVID-19 positivity rate by over 91% when compared to the reported provincial positivity rate over the same seven-month period.

Meat processing plants worldwide experienced a disproportionately greater incidence of COVID-19 than surrounding communities, despite implementing safety precautions.

The extraordinary reduction in the COVID-19 positivity rate permitted the plant to continue to operate without shutdown or disruption. Authors also noted that COVID-19 rates were lowered in populations surrounding the plant, potentially because of reduced transmission from the large worker population to the community. The voluntary, five-minute treatment was well received by the workforce, with a compliance rate of over 75% by the end of the seven-month study. No serious side effects from nasal photodisinfection were reported.

Professor Richard Rusk from the University of Manitoba and a joint author of the paper commented:

“This study suggests that nasal photodisinfection can provide safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 viral suppression when deployed in an industrial workplace setting. Outcomes of the study demonstrated significant reduction of COVID-19 rates compared to surrounding community rates, implying substantially reduced acute and long-term illness, disability, and death rates in plant employees. The intervention proved safe with repeated weekly administrations and was easy to implement and well received by the workforce. This has strong positive implications for viral outbreak suppression in other industries and employee demographics across the world.”

Carolyn Cross, CEO of Ondine, commented:

“Nasal photodisinfection has been used in hospitals across Canada for the past ten years, significantly reducing surgical site infections and readmission rates. This independent study extends experience with the technology to enterprise facilities and confirms the importance of nasal decolonisation to infection control of essential workers during a pandemic.

Outcomes of this study mirrored results found by Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (University Hospital Network, Toronto), as well as the University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) where substantial reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity was found in treated patients. As broad-spectrum photodisinfection can efficiently destroy viruses, bacteria, and fungi, we speculate that treated patients received peripheral benefits beyond infectivity control, extending to risk reduction of more severe pulmonary disease.”

Study Funding

The study was independently financed, with authors Professor Richard Rusk MD (University of Manitoba) and Judy Hodge DVM (Public Health Veterinarian with experience in monitoring and evaluation of global health projects), contributing to the research and responsible for compiling the manuscript.