Longevity of hand sanitisers on fingers.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Hand hygiene is important to reduce the spread of microbes in clinical settings. Hand sanitisers that last longer may be beneficial.

BACKGROUND

Longevity of hand sanitisation products on fingers and hands may be important to help reduce microbial transmission. The current study evaluated the persistence of disinfection of three hand sanitisers.

METHODS

Initially the minimum inhibitory concentrations of the hand sanitisers were determined using strains of

RESULTS

The minimum inhibitory concentration of an alcohol-based sanitiser (AS) was 10%, for the capric acid-based (CS) sanitiser was 70%, and for the quaternary ammonium-based (QS) sanitiser was < 10%. AS significantly reduced the number of microbes on fingers 10 minutes after hand washing (18.2 cfu/mL) compared to CS (59.7 cfu/mL; p < 0.0001) or QS (64.5 cfu/mL; p < 0.0001). Twenty minutes after use, microbes on fingers after AS (23 cfu/mL) or CS (16.7 cfu/mL) were significantly reduced compared to QS (72.2  cfu/mL; p < 0.0001) and the numbers on fingers after CS was significantly less than after AS (p = 0.002). Four hours after use of any hand sanitiser, the number of microbes increased to near baseline levels. The reduction in bacterial numbers was not affected by the use of neutralisers in agar (48 ± 28% reduction with, 47 ± 49% reduction without; p = 0.876).

CONCLUSIONS

Hand sanitisers containing capric acid or alcohol out-performed one containing quaternary ammonium in the clinical trial and may help reduce the spread of microbes.