A/Prof. Greg Whiteley3, Dr Trevor Glasbey1
1Whiteley Corporation, Tomago, Australia
2University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia
3Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, Australia
Introduction: Chlorine solutions are recommended throughout the Infection Prevention literature and official guidelines. Chlorine solutions are assumed to be an efficacious and inexpensive option for disinfection within healthcare settings.
However, chlorine products are not offered as a uniform solution in terms of concentration and chemical composition. Accurate product briefing sheets are rarely available from commercial suppliers.
Without reference to actual product concentration, statements within the Infection Control guidelines such as “The body of evidence informing this recommendation used a minimum of 1:10 dilution, equivalent to 0.1% active chlorine” are misleading without knowledge of the starting concentration!
This research study investigated a range of commercially available chlorine solutions for chlorine concentration, chemical composition and stability. Several of the products investigated were labelled as a Hospital Grade Disinfectant, whilst the other products fall outside the health regulator controls.
Methods: Validated chemical analytical techniques were used to determine available chlorine concentrations, composition excipients and degradation rates for stability of the chlorine solution.
Results: The results demonstrate that there is wide variation in available chlorine within these commercial and unregistered products.
The results of chlorine analysis for each product was compared to the dilution recommendations being made within the expert guidelines. No product met the intended chlorine concentration requirement.
Conclusion: Without reference to the actual concentration of available chlorine within a particular product it is not possible to arrive at the intended safe and efficacious concentration to achieve the intended disinfection outcome. Practitioners should only adopt product specific and validated recommendations for chlorine usage.
Biography: Adjunct A/Prof Greg Whiteley is an active researcher with affiliations at two separate universities investigating microbial resistance characteristics and biofilms modulation. As the Executive Chairman of Whiteley Corporation he is also actively involved in disinfectant validation studies. Dr Whiteley is a former member of HE023, a consultant member of the Australian Dental Association National Infection Control committee, a well published peer review author, a member of the Australian Society of Microbiology, a member of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America and a Fellow of Environmental Health Australia.