The coronavirus 2019-nCoV is an enveloped virus that probably originate from bats and is currently further transmitted between humans. The exact route of transmission is still under investigation, but the small water droplets (aerosols) expelled during sneezing and coughing contain virus particles and the virus has been reported in faces of human patients.

Personal hygiene measures are the first step in preventing the spread of viruses. Next to that, it is important to regularly clean and disinfect surfaces that may be contaminated and thereby act as transmission route. This requires a disinfectant that is able to effectively kill the pathogens.

According to the new European Biocidal Product Regulations (BPR), a disinfectant is allowed to claim general veterinary virucidal efficacy when it is able to achieve a log 4 (10,000-fold) reduction in the most difficult to kill enteric cytopathic bovine orphan virus (ECBO). This virus was chosen by the BPR as the reference virus for determination of biocidal virucidal efficacies based on not only in-vitro tenacity of the viruses to disinfection, but also on the principles established by Noll and Youngner (1959)2, classifying viruses into groups based on their increasing susceptibility to disinfection. This allows an end consumer to conclude that a biocide has full virucidal efficacy for all veterinary viruses when it is able to show efficacy against ECBO virus.