• DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08426-X
Corpus ID: 30450670

Limited efficacy of alcohol-based hand gels

@article{Kramer2002LimitedEO,
  title={Limited efficacy of alcohol-based hand gels},
  author={A. Kramer and P. Rudolph and G. Kampf and D. Pittet},
  journal={The Lancet},
  year={2002},
  volume={359},
  pages={1489-1490}
}

• A. Kramer, P. Rudolph, +1 author D. Pittet
• Published 2002
• Medicine
• The Lancet

Alcohol-based gels have been introduced recently in many hospitals worldwide for hand antisepsis. We investigated the antimicrobial efficacy of ten gels and four rinses according to European standards (EN 1500). No gel met the EN 1500 requirements within 30 s of application, whereas all hand rinses did. The tested hand gels should be considered a retrograde step for hand hygiene because the application time in clinical practice is often shorter than 30 s; they should not replace alcohol-based… Expand