Global & Disaster Medicine

Rubbing hands with ethanol-based sanitizers may not be effective hand hygiene after all.

ASM

“……the researchers from the Kyoto Profectural University of Medicine found that ethanol-based disinfectants, or hand sanitizers, would have be in contact for at least 4 minutes with the influenza A virus before killing it, a much longer duration than typical use. After 2 minutes of use, the virus was still active...….”

Ryohei Hirose, Takaaki Nakaya, Yuji Naito, Tomo Daidoji, Risa Bandou, Ken Inoue, Osamu Dohi, Naohisa Yoshida, Hideyuki Konishi, Yoshito Itoh
“…….If there is insufficient time before treating the next patient (i.e., if the infectious mucus is not completely dry), medical staff should be aware that effectiveness of AHR (rubbing) is reduced. Since AHW is effective against both dry and nondry infectious mucus, AHW (washing) should be adopted to compensate for these weaknesses of AHR…….”

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