Over the last couple of Blogs we have talked about confusion with hand hygiene. Here is a classic statement from a company who are promoted as experts and offer a Norovirus outbreak service.
"********" Specialist Hygiene’s advanced Norovirus bacteria disinfection service will ensure your office or workplace is completely disinfected of Norovirus bacteria.
Lets hope they have chosen the correct cleaning and disinfection products!!
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Youtube Video Trionic Wipes v Alcohol Based Wipes. Removal of Protein and Biofilm
With ongoing discussions with reference to alcohol wipes fixing proteins and biofilms onto surfaces, Jeff has headed up a video which we believe shows how well Trionic Wipes compare against alcohol based wipes, for removing protein contaminate and biofilm.
It highlights two key requirements for decontaminating surfaces:
The need to clean and then disinfect, users of alcohol based wipes for disinfection must use a detergent product for the first essential step, cleaning.
Fixing the contaminate to the surface and therefore fixing the biofilm is becoming a point which is discussed more and more. As we know the biofilm is a layer where bacteria inparticular will quite happily live and grow. Removal is an important requirement of decontaminating surfaces.
The video can be viewed on YouTube the link being http://youtu.be/SO1gRiR-8pU
Monday 21 May 2012
Ebiox Now on Peto Marketplace
A selection of the key products within the Ebiox product portfolio are now available on Peto one of the fastest growing market platform for supplying products to the NHS.
Visit www.peto.co.uk and click on Supplier Directory.
Visit www.peto.co.uk and click on Supplier Directory.
Friday 18 May 2012
Radio 4 Presents the same as the Guardian
Well there is obviously a growing interest in hand hygiene, especially in relation to general use rather than clinical.
There was an article on the Today Programme on Radio 4 discussing a very similar thread to that in the Guardian, even utilising one of the experts stated in the Guardian piece.
The conclusion by the Radio 4 presenter was that "I am just as confused now as I was at the start"!!!
Pretty much sums up the situation.
There was an article on the Today Programme on Radio 4 discussing a very similar thread to that in the Guardian, even utilising one of the experts stated in the Guardian piece.
The conclusion by the Radio 4 presenter was that "I am just as confused now as I was at the start"!!!
Pretty much sums up the situation.
Wednesday 16 May 2012
The Lack of Understanding of Hand Hygiene
We read with great interest an article recently published by the Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/13/do-we-really-need-hand-sanitisers
Both the article and the following comments emphasised the confusion there is over what is best practice with hand hygiene. Unquestionably there has been great strides made with the introduction of alcohol based hand rubs and the reduction of healthcare acquired infections, linked with other key infection prevention and control measures.
The article is written in a manner that hand sanitisers equals alcohol based products, as we know there are a number of key issues related to the use of such products, some noted in the article but it is the companies who produce these types of hand sanitisers which benefit from the current confusion.
There are alternatives which are readily available which are non alcohol based, such as the Esense Antimicrobial Hand Rub and Natural Esense Hand Rub. These types of products offer a number of benefits over the alcohol based rubs currently used. and are seeing an increasing uptake in use when these benefits have been realised.
To pick out all the "confused" points in the Guardian article would make this blog posting far too long, however two points really jumped off the page.
Firstly from an experts comment, "These sanitisers state that they kill 99.9% of germs, but the difficulty is that the data was done on inanimate surfaces and they do not replicate what happens on the human hand". This is not the case, the European Standard for testing hand sanitisers, EN1500 which is required to sell such products is conducted using a test standard number of pairs of hands.
The second point would relate to the comment "Spread of Diarrhoea and gastrointestinal illness can almost be halved by practising effective hand hygiene", I would suggest this leans more to the use of anti-microbial hand washes and water. Why? because the really aggressive pathogens such as Norovirus and Clostridium Difficle are not "killed" by using alcohol based hand rubs. Some will argue that Norovirus is but there is currently no definitive answer. NICE as does many other bodies, recommends the use of hand wash and water when these two pathogens are present.
They are the main cause of ward closures in the UK and many other countries, yet we still see the current hand sanitiser of choice ABHR's being used by healthcare workers, support staff and visitors to try and combat the spread of such pathogens.
So the confusion remains, not really clarified by this article. The alternatives to ABHR's which have been extensively tested, and potentially not the ones readily available over the counter, are shown to be certainly equal to or better than ABHR's in efficacy and offer a number of key benefits.
Both the article and the following comments emphasised the confusion there is over what is best practice with hand hygiene. Unquestionably there has been great strides made with the introduction of alcohol based hand rubs and the reduction of healthcare acquired infections, linked with other key infection prevention and control measures.
The article is written in a manner that hand sanitisers equals alcohol based products, as we know there are a number of key issues related to the use of such products, some noted in the article but it is the companies who produce these types of hand sanitisers which benefit from the current confusion.
There are alternatives which are readily available which are non alcohol based, such as the Esense Antimicrobial Hand Rub and Natural Esense Hand Rub. These types of products offer a number of benefits over the alcohol based rubs currently used. and are seeing an increasing uptake in use when these benefits have been realised.
To pick out all the "confused" points in the Guardian article would make this blog posting far too long, however two points really jumped off the page.
Firstly from an experts comment, "These sanitisers state that they kill 99.9% of germs, but the difficulty is that the data was done on inanimate surfaces and they do not replicate what happens on the human hand". This is not the case, the European Standard for testing hand sanitisers, EN1500 which is required to sell such products is conducted using a test standard number of pairs of hands.
The second point would relate to the comment "Spread of Diarrhoea and gastrointestinal illness can almost be halved by practising effective hand hygiene", I would suggest this leans more to the use of anti-microbial hand washes and water. Why? because the really aggressive pathogens such as Norovirus and Clostridium Difficle are not "killed" by using alcohol based hand rubs. Some will argue that Norovirus is but there is currently no definitive answer. NICE as does many other bodies, recommends the use of hand wash and water when these two pathogens are present.
They are the main cause of ward closures in the UK and many other countries, yet we still see the current hand sanitiser of choice ABHR's being used by healthcare workers, support staff and visitors to try and combat the spread of such pathogens.
So the confusion remains, not really clarified by this article. The alternatives to ABHR's which have been extensively tested, and potentially not the ones readily available over the counter, are shown to be certainly equal to or better than ABHR's in efficacy and offer a number of key benefits.
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