Efficacy of an Ethanol-Based Hand Sanitizer for the Disinfection of Blood Pressure Cuffs

Abstract

Blood pressure cuffs (BP cuffs) have been implicated in some nosocomial outbreaks. We compared the efficacy of an ethanol-based hand sanitizer (EBHS) with a detergent/disinfectant for the disinfection of BP cuffs. The inner sides of 30 BP cuffs were sampled for bacterial culture. Then, the same area was divided into halves. One half was disinfected by a detergent/disinfectant and the other was disinfected by an EBHS. The bacterial count decreased significantly with both disinfectants (p < 0.0001 compared with before disinfection). The bacterial count decrease seemed greater with the EBHS compared with the detergent/disinfectant, but the difference was not significant. Therefore, within the limits of a single application, the EBHS was an efficacious means of BP cuff disinfection. However, the repeated exposure to emollients contained in EBHS may require further studies before validating these results.

Role of Plant Based Hand Sanitizers During the Recent Outbreak of Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Disease (Covid-19)

“…The continuous use or overuse of hand sanitizers can cause chronic irritation and severe skin breakdown among other effects especially in children [47,59]. Furthermore, the continuous topical application of ethanol on the skin was reported to lower skin barrier functions, thereby rending the membrane highly susceptible to harmful chemicals in soaps and cosmetics [47,60]. Hand sanitizers usually end-up being deposited in high concentrations of the constituting chemical residues (contaminants) in the environmental soil and water bodies.…”

“…Hand sanitizers usually end-up being deposited in high concentrations of the constituting chemical residues (contaminants) in the environmental soil and water bodies. Higher concentrations of these chemicals released in the environment could trigger multi-drug resistance [47,60]. Alcohol-based products achieve rapid and effective inactivation of various bacteria, but their efficacy is generally lower against non enveloped viruses [41,44,47,59].…”

“…Alcohol-based products achieve rapid and effective inactivation of various bacteria, but their efficacy is generally lower against non enveloped viruses [41,44,47,59]. The general safety issues associated with Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers (ABHS) are flammability of alcohol and toxicity due to the accidental ingestion of the sanitizer [41,44,47,59,60].…”

“…Therefore, washing hands with ordinary soap solution is very effective at killing and eliminating the virus and other germs in the hand [41,44,47,[59][60][61]. The fatty outer surface of the virus is denatured by the soap molecule and this process leads to the destruction of the virus which is washed away by water [44,47,59-…”

A fast and low-cost approach to quality control of alcohol-based hand sanitizer using a portable near infrared spectrometer and chemometrics

“…Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are important products for hand hygiene preventing the spread of infectious diseases as they eliminate pathogenic microorganisms. 1–4 Virucidal potential of ethanol occurs at concentrations of 60–80%, required to inactive many lipophilic and hydrophilic viruses. 5,6…”