Safety alert for hospital environments and health professional: chlorhexidine is ineffective for coronavirus

Abstract

SUMMARY An alarming fact was revealed by recent publications concerning disinfectants: chlorhexidine digluconate is ineffective for disinfecting surfaces contaminated by the new coronavirus. This is a finding that requires immediate disclosure since this substance is widely used for the disinfection of hands and forearms of surgeons and auxiliaries and in the antisepsis of patients in minimally invasive procedures commonly performed in hospital environments. The objective of this study is to compare the different disinfectants used for disinfection on several surfaces, in a review of worldwide works. Scientific studies were researched in the BVS (Virtual Health Library), PubMed, Medline, and ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency) databases. The following agents were studied: alcohol 62-71%, hydrogen peroxide 0.5%, sodium hypochlorite 0.1%, benzalkonium chloride 0.05-0.2%, povidone-iodine 10%, and chlorhexidine digluconate 0.02%, on metal, aluminum, wood, paper, glass, plastic, PVC, silicone, latex (gloves), disposable gowns, ceramic, and Teflon surfaces. Studies have shown that chlorhexidine digluconate is ineffective for inactivating some coronavirus subtypes, suggesting that it is also ineffective to the new coronavirus.

Virucidal efficacy of chlorhexidine: a systematic review

“…The search strategy was performed on July 9th, 2021. Hand searching of the reference lists of all studies included in the search strategy and in the reference list of previously published reviews was performed [ 14 , 17 – 19 ]. The full search strategy for all databases can be found in Appendix 1.…”

Systematic review of the effect of endodontic irrigants over coronaviruses

“…A more recent study alerting health professionals that chlorhexidine digluconate is (CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i6.15457 ineffective for inactivating some coronavirus subtypes, and thus it is also ineffective over the SARS-CoV-2. (Assis, Araújo, & Lopes, 2020) It was impossible to find studies that evaluate the effect of endodontic irrigants over SARS-CoV-2 in the root canal due to its novel appearance. However, It is believed that SARS-CoV-2 may act like the other viruses in the same category of coronaviruses like SARS-CoV and MERS, (Henwood, 2020) more recently, NaOCl was recommended as effective disinfectant of SARS-CoV-2.…”

Oxidative Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 on Photoactive AgNPs@TiO2 Ceramic Tiles

“…In May 2020, the WHO published a guidance report entitled Cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces in the context of COVID-19 [14], after confirming COVID-19 transmission through contaminated environmental surfaces [15]. In this report, the WHO suggested using chlorine-based disinfectants in particular for those situations in which the cleaning of surfaces using common disinfectants [16] is inconvenient in emergency cases, or even while some disinfectants are ineffective such as the common chlorhexidine digluconate disinfectant [17]. We have to remember that the over-use of disinfectant sprays and products might lead to severe health effects associated primarily with asthma and respiratory disease [18,19].…”