| We compared the effectiveness of alcohol gel with that of the traditional hand-cleansing agents in removing clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans from artificially contaminated hands. The fingertips of 6 volunteers were contaminated with approximately 10(6) of microbial cells, and then were washed with: plain liquid soap, alcohol gel, 70% ethyl alcohol (by weight), 10% povidone-iodine liquid soap (PVP-I), and 4% chlorhexidine gluconate detergent. The experiments were performed using a Latin square statistical design, with six 6 x 5 randomized blocks, and the results were estimated by ANOVA. The products reduced from... |
