A COMPANY based in Truro claims it has produced a spray for textiles that kills viruses on contact – including coronavirus.

The spray, called Life-Guard, is a super concentrated disinfectant that is applied to clothes, shoes and even curtains and furniture.

The team from Illumini Prime, which developed it, said: "Life-Guard has been scientifically proven to kill superbugs including Covid-19, SARS, HIV and norovirus plus thousands more pathogens and germs within two minutes of contact and is 100 per cent effective for ten days."

Having moved to an office at Truro’s Health and Wellbeing Innovation Centre in July, Illumini Prime is working with Big Box Advertising to showcase the textile spray on information screens in the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Rhett St James, managing director of Illumini Prime, said: “Life-Guard contains and kills viruses. In the current pandemic we believe it’s the missing part of personal protection equipment that everyone needs.”

Life-Guard has been developed in super-concentrate form because Rhett and his team say they are passionate about protecting the environment from unnecessary use of plastics - a 30ml ‘eco-shot’ can be diluted to produce three litres of spray.

Rhett added: “Imagine how many plastic bottles would be needed to hold that amount of disinfectant, as well as the fuel required to transport it. We need to reduce the use of plastics which are really devastating to the planet.”