Durability of Specific Immunoglobulin (Ig) Y Against Influenza and COVID-19 in Lipbalm

Abstract

Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 virus are respiratory infections and require antiviral medications due to severe consequences. Utilization of specific immunoglobulin Y (IgY) inserted in personal care products were developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate durability of specific IgY against influenza and COVID-19 in lipbalm. The concentration of IgY used in this research was 0.1% and 0.25%. Three groups were observed: control (C) lipbalm without IgY, treatment 1 (T1) lipbalm with 0.1% IgY and treatment 2 (T2) lipbalm with 0.25% IgY. Organoleptic tests were conducted and recorded which includes the sense of smell, colour and consistency for six weeks. The presence of IgY in lipbalm was evaluated using enzyme-linked-immunosorbent-assay (ELISA) and neutralizationassay. There were some noticeable changes of organoleptic that can be observed such as colour darkened and texture hardened of the lipbalm. Most of the assays gave negative results in T1 and T2, whilst only few of them were doubtful. Our result indicated that IgY concentration of 0.1% or 0.25% in lipbalm were not optimal. However, the negative result might be due to the unavailability of IgY in the product to be dissolved in deionized water since we used beeswax as lipbalm component.