Comprehensive bactericidal activity of an ethanol-based hand gel in 15 seconds

Günter Kampf¹^,2 and Angela Hollingsworth³

¹Bode Chemie GmbH & Co. KG, Scientific Affairs, Melanchthonstr. 27, 22525 Hamburg, Germany

²Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Walther-Rathenau-Str. 49a, 17489 Greifswald, Germany

³MICROBIOTEST Inc., 105B Carpenter Drive, Sterling, Virginia, USA

author email corresponding author email

Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2008, 7:2doi:10.1186/1476-0711-7-2


Published:	22 January 2008

Abstract

Background

Some studies indicate that the commonly recommended 30 s application time for the post contamination treatment of hands may not be necessary as the same effect may be achieved with some formulations in a shorter application time such as 15 s.

Method

We evaluated the bactericidal activity of an ethanol-based hand gel (Sterillium^®Comfort Gel) within 15 s in a time-kill-test against 11 Gram-positive, 16 Gram-negative bacteria and 11 emerging bacterial pathogens. Each strain was evaluated in quadruplicate.

Results

The hand gel (85% ethanol, w/w) was found to reduce all 11 Gram-positive and all 16 Gram-negative bacteria by more than 5 log₁₀steps within 15 s, not only against the ATCC test strains but also against corresponding clinical isolates. In addition, a log₁₀reduction > 5 was observed against all tested emerging bacterial pathogens.

Conclusion

The ethanol-based hand gel was found to have a broad spectrum of bactericidal activity in only 15 s which includes the most common species causing nosocomial infections and the relevant emerging pathogens. Future research will hopefully help to find out if a shorter application time for the post contamination treatment of hands provides more benefits or more risks.