The effectiveness of alcohol gel and other hand-cleansing agents against important nosocomial pathogens

• Autor(a) principal: Hernandes,Silvio Evandro Daniel
• Data de Publicação: 2004
• Outros Autores: Mello,Aline Cláudia de, Sant'Ana,Janete Jordão, Soares,Vanessa Sarto, Cassiolato,Valdir, Garcia,Lourdes Botelho, Cardoso,Celso Luíz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Microbiology
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1517-83822004000100005
• topic: alcohol gel; hand-cleansing agents; nosocomial pathogens

We compared the effectiveness of alcohol gel with that of the traditional hand-cleansing agents in removing clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans from artificially contaminated hands. The fingertips of 6 volunteers were contaminated with approximately 10(6) of microbial cells, and then were washed with: plain liquid soap, alcohol gel, 70% ethyl alcohol (by weight), 10% povidone-iodine liquid soap (PVP-I), and 4% chlorhexidine gluconate detergent. The experiments were performed using a Latin square statistical design, with six 6 x 5 randomized blocks, and the results were estimated by ANOVA. The products reduced from 93.83% (plain liquid soap) to 100% (PVP-I) of the microbial population applied to the hands. In 4 of 6 test microorganisms analyzed, 10% PVP-I, alcohol gel, 70% ethyl alcohol, and 4% chlorhexidine had significantly higher removal rates than plain liquid soap (P < 0.05). The results confirm the effectiveness of alcohol gel for hand hygiene and suggest that 10% PVP-I, alcohol gel, 70% ethyl alcohol, and 4% chlorhexidine may be more effective than plain liquid soap for removing A. baumannii, E. coli, E. faecalis, and C. albicans strains from heavily contaminated hands.