In my Spring, 2005 "endeavors" magazine, which is the UNC-Chapel Hill, NC research magazine, a supplement to the Carolina Alumnae Review, there is a short article called "soap and water". It reports on a study from the March 2005 issue of American Journal of Infection Control led by Emily Sickbert-Bennet, that was designed to test how well various products work to prevent infection in hospitals and other health care settings. The researchers tested 12 hand-sanitizing products that contained active ingredients similar to products sold at most drug and grocery stores. Participants hands were infected with bacteria or harmless viruses, and the participants washed or sanitized their hands for ten seconds. The article states that this is the largest and most comprehensive study of hand hygiene products to date.
After one contamination with bacteria, and one washing, all the products except two worked well, removing 90-99% of the bacteria. The two that did significantly worse were both moist antimicrobial towelettes. Soaps used at the sink with water were most effective against bacteria. 

With viruses, which are hard to kill with these products, nothing worked better than physically removing them with plain soap and water. The alcohol-based hand rubs were generally ineffective in reducing the amount of virus on the hands. 

I thought I would share this, and would like to get a copy of the study as well to read, because I was under the impression that these hand sanitizers were effective against bacteria and viruses. 

Ann Calandro, RNC, IBCLC

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