An Investigation into the Inactivation Kinetics of Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor Against Clostridium difficile Endospores

Abstract

C. difficile spores are resistant to routine cleaning agents and are able to survive on inanimate surfaces for long periods of time. There is increasing evidence of the importance of the clinical environment as a reservoir for pathogenic agents and as a potential source of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). In this context, to reduce the risk of cross-transmission, terminal disinfection of hospital wards and isolation rooms using hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV) is attracting attention. Spores of C. difficile (ribotype 027) were exposed to constant concentrations of HPV ranging between 11 and 92 mg m À3 (ppm) for a range of exposure times in a specially designed chamber. The inactivation data thus obtained was fitted using the modified Chick-Watson inactivation model to obtain decimal reduction values (D values). D values ranged from 23 to 1.3 min at HPV concentrations of 11 and 92 ppm, respectively. We present a simple mathematical model based on the inactivation kinetic data obtained here to estimate the efficacy of commercial HPV processes used in healthcare environmental decontamination. C. difficile spores showed linear inactivation kinetics at steady HPV concentrations ranging between 10 and 90 ppm. The data obtained here was used to provide estimates of the inactivation efficacy of commercial HPV process cycles, which employ unsteady HPV concentrations during the decontamination process.

Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium in black and red pepper by vacuumed hydrogen peroxide vapour

“…HPV is typically used as a sterilization method for medical devices (Rutalta & Weber, 2016), and many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of HPV or the gaseous phase of hydrogen peroxide on the inactivation of micro‐organisms. HPV has been shown to effectively reduce the levels of Bacillus anthracis spores (Wood et al, 2016), Clostridium difficile endospores (Malik et al, 2016), two surrogates of human norovirus, murine norovirus and feline calicivirus (Zonta et al, 2016) and even prions (Fichet et al, 2007). However, using HPV for food pasteurization has rarely been studied.…”

Suitability of Sodium Pyruvate as Decomposer of Carried‐over Liquid Hydrogen Peroxide

“…Many authors reported that the bactericidal and sporicidal effect of liquid hydrogen peroxide has already been researched and published in detail [7][8][9], and numerous studies were conducted in the field of inactivation kinetics of microorganisms by liquid hydrogen peroxide [10][11][12]. However, the focus of researchers were mainly bacteria and spores of Bacillus subtilis [1,6,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Staphylococcus aureus [20,21], and Clostridia [22,23]. However, in context with the highly thermal resistant Geobacillus stearothermophilus spores, only minor survival curves determined with liquid hydrogen peroxide can be found [13,[24][25][26].…”

Plasma-Activated Aerosolized Hydrogen Peroxide (aHP) in Surface Inactivation Procedures

“…Numerous studies have demonstrated the efficiency of hydrogen peroxide surface decontamination using hydrogen peroxide vapors (HPV), vaporized hydrogen peroxide (VHP), or aerosolized hydrogen peroxide (aHP), the latter being sometimes referred to as dry mist hydrogen peroxide (DMHP). 1,6 -9 These approaches have been proven successful with bacteria, 10 -13 spores of bacteria 5,14 -16 and fungi, 17 protozoa and their cysts, viruses, 8 and even prions. 18 VHP 19 and HPV 11 were shown to kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis , whereas the genuine efficiency of aHP in inactivating the same bacteria 12,20 was the subject of lively discussion 21,22 stressing the fact that hydrogen peroxide vapor and hydrogen peroxide aerosol decontamination might not be directly compared.…”