Anti-bacterial Efficacy of WHO Recommended Locally made Alcohol based Hand Rub in a Resource Constraint Environment

Abstract

Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are a major concern and associated with noticeable morbidity and mortality. To combat this, the simple strategy is hand hygiene (HH). In a resource constraint settings one of the important reason for poor hand hygiene compliance is irregular supply of HH products. This study was done to assess the cost effectiveness and acceptability of WHO recommended locally made alcohol based hand rub. The study was carried out in 28 HCPs working in an IMCU. Samples for the assessment of the microbial hand contamination were collected by direct fingerprint of their dominant hand onto the blood agar plates at three different time point. Group A samples collected in random. Group B samples collected immediately after patient physical examination. Group C were group B representatives collected after cleaning their hands with locally made isopropyl alcohol based hand rub. No significant difference in colony count between the groups A and B was observed. On the other hand, there was a statistically significant difference in colony count between the groups B and C (P=0.05). It means that the rubbing of the hands using locally made WHO recommended hand sanitizer enabled to eradicate the bacterial flora remarkably from the hands of HCPs.