Heat inactivation of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

The culture supernatants of the emerging Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) were submitted to three temperatures over time and tested for infectivity by TCID(50) method on Vero E6 cells. At 56°C, almost 25 minutes were necessary to reduce the initial titre by 4 log(10). Increasing temperature to 65°C had a strong negative effect on viral infectivity as virucidy dropped significantly to 1 minute. On the contrary, no significant decrease in titre was observed after 2 hours at 25°C. These data might be useful in establishing biosafety measures in laboratories against MERS-CoV.