**5. Novel antiviral surface treatments**

Research efforts are ongoing for the development of novel and continuously active coatings that are capable of maintaining low levels of bioburden while inactivating pathogenic microorganisms. A thorough review has been published of these coatings and their proposed mechanisms of action [14, 43]. The antiviral actives include biopolymers (e.g., antimicrobial peptides), synthetic polymers (e.g., polyethyleneimines, and graphene [14, 44, 45]. Natural product-based surface coatings and super-hydrophobic surfaces are also under development [46, 47]. Although many of these innovative technologies demonstrate promising antiviral effectiveness, further assessments of efficacy against additional types of viruses under various conditions are required. Reproducibility data generated among different lab groups would also be ideal to ensure product efficacy and reliability. Further, scaling up from the lab bench to assess these technologies under real-world conditions (i.e. placement into high-traffic, high-touch areas) will provide insight as to the consistency of their efficacy.

### **6. Conclusions and recommendations**

From this review, it is clear that promising antiviral continuously active disinfectants are a reality. However, many obstacles exist before their widespread implementation. These include:

• Development and validation of standard methods for testing the efficacy of antiviral continuously active disinfectants. Ideally, these methods would indicate appropriate experimental conditions including relative humidity and temperature, organic soil load matrices, and evaluation of virucidal efficacy against enveloped and non-enveloped viruses.

