Use of shorter hand sanitizer may be more effective

According to European Research, using WHO recommended alcohol hand rubs for shorter period could result in better outcomes. The current WHO advice for healthcare staff is to use hand sanitizers for between 20 and 30 seconds.

After evaluating 10 commercially-available hand sanitizers, they discovered that each of them offered equal or higher efficacy when used for 15 seconds compared with the 30 second period. And antimicrobial results were interchangeable in both cases.

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“Basically, the statement of our study was that the efficacy in reducing bacterial load was not significantly different when performing hand antisepsis for 15 seconds or 30 seconds,” said researcher Romana Klasinc from the Medical University of Vienna’s Department for Infection Control.