Hyderabad: Latest research into the Novel Coronavirus SARS CoV-2 has discovered and established that the virus that is responsible for the fast-spreading Covid-19 disease, can survive up to a sizzling 92º Celsius of heat, just eight (8) degrees shy of 100-degree Celsius temperature required to boil water.
The study published by scientists from the Aix-Marseille University in France focused on safety aspects of healthcare personnel handling samples of suspected Covid-19 positive patients and steps needed to ensure the virus becomes inactive before confirmation tests can be conducted on samples.
The findings puts paid to speculation that made rounds on social media and even in some sections of mainstream media every now and then that summer heat in India will prevent further spread of the Covid-19 virus.
The study published last Saturday on bioRxiv, the pre-print server for biology, which has become popular with regular research publications on Novel Coronavirus, by Prof Remi Charrel and others, said that the virus did not lose its ability to replicate even after samples were heated for an hour at 60 degrees Celsius.
The authors said that only when samples were heated for 15 minutes at 92 degrees Celsius did the virus die.
