Kriterien der Auswahl von Reinigungs-/ Desinfektionsmitteln für Böden und Personal Jörg Siebert Schülke & Mayr GmbH, Norderstedt
Selection Criteria for Cleaners and Disin-fectants for Surfaces and Personnel The desired success of a disinfection measure is only guaranteed when suit-able disinfection procedures are selected depending on the application field. Decisive for such a success are the disinfec-tant and its active ingredients, the concentration of the use solution, the applied amount of disinfectant, how it is distributed on the object, application time and temperature and mechanical influences. Hereafter procedures are described for the hygienic hand disinfection and surface disinfection.
Efficacy requirements have to be defined by the user. It is of particular importance to clarify against which kind of microorganisms a protection is necessary - i.e. bacteria, fungi, spores, mycobacteria, viruses. It has to be stipulated under which parameters the effect is to be reached - application time, contamination load, classes of active ingredients or environmental influences. Last but not least marginal conditions may gain importance like cleansing capacity, material compatibility or compliance by personnel.
From the available substances single representatives from each class of substances can be used only. The application is determined by steric properties, vapour pressure, toxicology, and compatibility, and above all good or bad efficacy.
The efficacy is normally determined by standardized test procedures which contain pass/fail criteria. Suspension tests are always part of these test procedures. In such tests germ reduction of at least 5 log10 steps (/\ 99.999 %) is very often required to prove the efficacy. In a suspension test it is advantageous that influences like contamination, concentration, application time etc. can easily be observed. A thorough evaluation of the efficacy of a disinfectant requires apart from the suspension tests results of tests under practical conditions as they are introduced for hand disinfection.Corresponding test procedures have been worked out by scientific associations or institutes in Germany. Namely the DGHM (German Association for Hygiene and Microbiology) publishes a list of tested and effective disinfectants in regular intervals. Meanwhile the CEN TC 216 (i.e. the technical committee no. 216 of the European Committee for Normalization) works on the establishment of euronorms for the different application fields of disinfectant procedures. Some norms are already adopted and must be applied for efficacy testing.
There is no danger of developing resistance against disinfectants because very unspecific mechanisms of action are involved. Therefore, it is not necessary t o change between different procedures of disinfection. It has to be cautioned not to mix uncontrolled disinfectants with other components like cleansers because a chemical inactivation of the antimicrobial agents may occur. Key words Desinfektionsmittel, Böden, Personal · Hygiene · Reinigungsmittel |
