In healthcare, the tools available to combat healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) and uphold appropriate hand hygiene have remained unchanged for quite some time. It was demonstrated in 2020 that soap, water and alcohol-based hand sanitizers had limited efficacy, yet hand sanitizers have become commonplace, with little distinction among them. Standard hand sanitizers across all brands share similar levels of efficacy, application times, and a complete lack of sustained protection. This deficiency poses a substantial risk of re-contamination once individuals touch surfaces, as these products evaporate quickly and don’t linger on the skin long enough to combat pathogens effectively. This, of course, is especially risky in healthcare settings.
Hospital-acquired infections, like E. coli or C. diff, pose a serious challenge in healthcare settings globally. Each year, about 15-25% of hospitalized patients are affected by HAIs worldwide. The NHS suffers a substantial economic burden (an estimated £2.7 billion per year) from HAIs causing prolonged hospitalization, high treatment costs and increased risk of complications.
In recent years, the healthcare industry has increasingly explored new strategies to counter the dissemination of challenging pathogens such as C. diff and other superbugs. One of the main treatments for these infections is taking different courses of antibiotics. However, the constant prescription of antibiotics is leading us to develop antibiotic resistance, making HAIs more difficult to treat. As a prevention measure instead of treatment, Surface Active Therapeutics have emerged as a particularly promising avenue in the realm of infection control.
What are Surface Active Therapeutics?
Surface Active Therapeutics are advanced treatments applied directly to the skin (or a surface) to provide highly effective and sustained antimicrobial protection. They involve using enhanced antimicrobial materials that form a continuous protective shield over the skin. This shield is made of a polymer matrix, which combines active and passive components to guard against harmful pathogens.
The material forms spikes that stay on surfaces like skin, ensuring long-lasting effectiveness. The polymer matrix is designed to actively attract and target live pathogens and disinfect them within seconds. Additionally, it can disrupt and stop the formation of biofilms (without physical abrasion), making it an innovative approach to combat a wider range of infections effectively.
By implementing Surface Active Therapeutic solutions, users for the first time will benefit from sustained protection against the broadest spectrum of pathogens being killed, including gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as drug-resistant variants (such as E. coli and MRSA), enveloped and non-enveloped viruses (e.g. Influenza, Norovirus and SARS-CoV-2), fungi, and spores (such as Clostridium difficile).
Benefits of Surface Active Therapeutics
In addition to their immediate benefits for the improvement of patient safety, Surface Active Therapeutics such as TridAnt ®, an antimicrobial solution which powers products from Primel, have deep implications for healthcare systems and their finances. By curbing the transmission of C. diff infections and other HAIs, these technologies could play a vital role in reducing the economic strain linked with prolonged hospital stays, treatment costs and associated complications. Their widespread use in healthcare environments would allow for a better standard of care. Furthermore, these innovative technologies provide a route to improve compliance by bridging the gap in infection prevention by sustaining your protection between applications or hand washes. Its preventative technology enables you to disinfect the surfaces when your skin is in contact with them, therefore beating superbug infections before they ever occur. In addition, the added protection improves operational efficiency and reduces the number of products used. This enables healthcare services to improve patient safety and outcomes whilst increasing and growing the efficiency of healthcare systems.
This technology can significantly impact other priorities within the healthcare systems, such as reducing antimicrobial resistance, easing reliance on single-use items and allowing for enhanced protection against pathogens for all individuals within healthcare facilities. The use of Surface Active Therapeutics provides a new system to improve patient safety, enhance infection prevention infrastructure and evolves the efficiency and efficacy within healthcare systems.
The Adoption of Surface Active Therapeutics
Despite the advanced nature of the technology, Surface Active Therapeutics are straightforward for hospitals to adopt. The first available technology, Primel’s Active Hand Shield, is applied effortlessly: one spray per side of the hand (four sprays in total), and then spread the solution around your palms and fingers to give you complete protection. Overall, this type of solution follows a simple “Shield Up, Shield Down” approach (as opposed to the more complicated five moments of touch). By way of an example, a medical professional would apply a Surface Active Therapeutic at the beginning of their shift (Shield Up) to be protected for the entire duration of the shift. The individual does not need to reapply (Shield Boost), apart from in the following circumstances: washing hands (after activities including a toilet break or getting soilage on your hands), or conducting an aseptic procedure. By undertaking this simple regime, a medical professional would guarantee their hands are protected for the entirety of their working shift, even when they are touching other surfaces or interacting with patients.
What’s Next?
In envisioning a future where Surface Active Therapeutics become the cornerstone of infection prevention, we see a world where these advanced solutions are seamlessly integrated into everyday healthcare practices, making disinfection of pathogens as simple and automatic as touching a surface. This new regime is a revolutionary shift towards a streamlined, universally accessible system that ensures the highest standards of hygiene and patient safety. The simplicity of their application – a quick spray and spread – ensures that every patient, professional and visitor of healthcare services can easily adopt this protective measure and significantly reduce the risk of HCAIs.
Primel® Active Hand Shield is the only Surface Active Therapeutic to provide fast acting antimicrobial protection that is sustained throughout the day, actively combating a wide spectrum of pathogens, including antibiotic-resistant superbugs and spores, whilst constantly stopping the transmission of germs by disinfecting surfaces with your touch. By embedding this technology into routine healthcare protocols, the spread of infections like C. diff and MRSA can be drastically curtailed whilst enabling focus on other chronic illnesses. This approach not only alleviates the economic burden of HCAIs on systems like the NHS but also contributes to the broader battle against antibiotic resistance, enhancing patient safety and improving sustainability to fortify public health services on a global scale.
This new era represents a shift from reactive to proactive healthcare, where the focus is on preventing infections before they occur. With committed investment and widespread adoption, Surface Active Therapeutics can become the norm, ushering in a new age of infection control where everyone, from patients to healthcare professionals, benefits from a safer and healthier environment.
