UK Company Heralds a Major Step forward for Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings

Primel® Hand Protection demonstrates ground-breaking results against well-known, regularly used hand sanitiser in a care home evaluation; Infection Prevention & Control Conference chosen as venue for announcement of the results from the care home.

Primel®, the patient care-industry focused brand developing the latest technologies in health and hygiene, is today announcing the ground-breaking results from the controlled evaluation held in a care home in Manchester. The purpose was to compare the efficacy of Primel® Hand Protection powered by TridAnt® against a well-known regularly used hand sanitiser on the hands of 35 healthcare workers over a ten-day period. Perfectus Biomed Group, part of NAMSA, leaders in microbiology testing services for a variety of sectors including wound care, medical devices and infectious diseases conducted the care home evaluation. The results amongst other data demonstrated that Primel® Hand Protection provides superior protection against pathogens, including some of the most drug resistant microbes, on immediate application and over a prolonged period of time as well as showing surfaces were cleaner after contact.

The care home evaluation represents the first comprehensive comparison of a long-term hand sanitiser efficacy in a real-world scenario. The comparative evaluation recovered samples taken from the hands of healthcare workers at four different points, including:

• Before the application of either product (regularly used hand sanitiser and Primel® Hand Protection).
• Immediately after application of either product.
• During the one-hour period, the volunteers wore gloves which were collected, and samples taken from the inside at the end of the time period, to assess the transmission of germs from hands to gloves.

Overall, the analysis showed that application of Primel® Hand Protection resulted in the recovery of significantly less viable microorganisms compared to the established regularly used hand sanitiser across all time points. The evaluation first highlights that Primel® Hand Protection was 21% more effective after immediate application compared to the well-known regularly used hand sanitiser. The second result confirmed that Primel® Hand Protection was 46% more effective after one hour of use compared to the well-known regularly used hand sanitiser. Additionally, the inside of the volunteers’ gloves were tested after the one-hour timepoint, and the gloves of Primel® Hand Protection users were found to have 84% less pathogens. After immediate application Primel® Hand Protection was 75% effective and after 1 hour 72% effective, therefore maintaining its efficacy whilst the regularly used hand sanitiser dropped its efficacy considerably from 54% to 26%, respectively. Not only was Primel® Hand Protection able to maintain its efficacy, it was more effective at 1 h compared to the immediate effect of the regularly used hand sanitiser, demonstrating its superior performance.

Further testing has proven that Primel® Hand Protection can disinfect pathogens, including some of the most drug resistant microbes, in 15 seconds, significantly quicker than other options regularly used. The evidence created demonstrates a considerable increase in antimicrobial protection thanks to the use of Primel® Hand Protection. This confirms that the evolution from Primel® Hand Protection with “Kill-on-Touch” Technology was able to improve the protection against pathogens over prolonged periods of time whilst being able to reduce the amount that was transferred from surface to surface. Arjun Luthra, CEO of Primel, explains: “The care home evaluation has demonstrated Primel® Hand Protection’s superiority in hand protection when compared against existing standard of care which uses well-known and regularly used hand sanitiser products. Understanding the effectiveness of our Hand Protection in a real-world setting is crucial to improving hand hygiene strategies in health care settings. It supports the fact users are able to wash their hands once per patient which helps to improve the quality of care and productivity whilst saving time, water and consumables. Primel® Hand Protection has a long-term (48 hours) and broad spectrum of efficacy which includes Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria, enveloped and non-enveloped viruses as well as yeast.

“The further significant result of this evaluation was Primel® Hand Protection’s ability to demonstrate its “Kill-on-Touch” Technology in a real-world scenario. This is the first time that a product, Primel® Hand Protection, was able to demonstrate the ability to disinfect the surface with a user’s touch. This proves that Primel® Hand Protection’s ‘Kill-on-Touch’ Technology was able to reduce the number of pathogens that are transferred from the hands of healthcare workers to surfaces they interact with. Overall, Primel® Hand Protection showed an increase in antimicrobial activity across all time points when compared to a well-known and regularly used hand sanitiser,” adds Luthra. This suggests that Primel® Hand Protection has a greater sustained antimicrobial efficacy than any other hand sanitiser on the market today.

The test report from Perfectus Biomed Group concluded: “Over ten days of sampling, Primel® Hand Protection achieved a significantly greater reduction in total viable recovery than the reference hand sanitiser one hour after application, both from the hands of the healthcare workers and the gloves that they were wearing. Primel® Hand Protection application resulted in a lower recovery of total viable organisms compared to the reference hand sanitiser immediately after application.”