Background: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease, -spreading from person to person through the air. When a person with infectious tuberculosis coughs or sneezes, tiny particles containing Mycobacterium tuberculosis are expelled into the air and remain suspended for several hours. Therefore, it is important to control the transmission of M. tuberculosis through air. This study was conducted to determine the inactivation efficacy of the plasma generator against the M. tuberculosis.Methods: The attenuated M. tuberculosis H37Ra inoculated on the solid medium were placed in hospital wards and BL3 laboratory, with a plasma generator (Model TB-500, Shinyoung Airtech, Seongnam-si, Korea) being operated at specific time intervals. The growth of M. tuberculosis was determined by plasma exposure time.Results: M. tuberculosis samples exposed to non-thermal plasma for 3, 6, 9, and 24 h showed inhibition effects of 45-75%, 69-86%, 93-100%, and 100%, respectively. Thus, it was found that the inhibition effect of plasma generators against M. tuberculosis were proportional to the plasma exposure time. Conclusion: The non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma generator technique may be applied as a promising technique for the prevention of M. tuberculosis infection in healthcare and other public facilities, when operated for more than 9 h.

Keywords: Inactivation, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Plasma, Tuberculosis