by This final segment concludes our independent survey, gathering perspectives for consideration by the 2014 CFP Hand Hygiene Committee which will be announced following this month’s CFP board meeting. Thank you for your responses. Here are the results:
Hand Hygiene Pre-Committee, Survey #3
- A two-step wash-sanitize protocol has been approved by the U.S. Military, the Southern Nevada Health District (one client, under a letter-of-no objection) and the Clark County Nevada School District. This protocol, with its years of use, third party peer-reviewed research and various approvals, should be thoroughly considered by the 2014 CFP Hand Hygiene Committee.
- Inconvenience is a major factor in handwashing noncompliance. All recommended handwash alternatives should address the convenience factor.
- Handwashing, hand cleansing and hand sanitizing with alcohol-based solutions still carry with them an echo of the conventional thinking from the past that alcohol hand sanitizers don’t kill Norovirus. Independent research proves that alcohol hand sanitizers can be formulated to be effective on Norovirus.
- Emory University’s work proved that human norovirus (HuNoV) is harder to kill than its surrogates. Emory’s protocol should be considered the new standard for future research. It uses the “finger pad” method and HuNoV. [Both the University of Ottawa’s renowned viral expert, Dr. Sattar and Handwashing For Life recommend use of the “finger pad” method over the “whole hand” protocol which reduces experimental control, compromises data quality and would pose a higher risk to the human subjects if human Norovirus were used as the inoculum.]
