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The use of disinfectants remains the backbone for environmental decontamination and infection control in multiple industries including laboratories, healthcare, educational and institutional settings to name a few. Numerous peer reviewed studies have confirmed that the environment can play a role in the transmission of microorganisms and therefore thorough attention to cleaning and disinfecting is required to minimize this as a source of contamination. Unfortunately, the requirements for the effective use of most disinfectant chemistries are often very difficult to comply with under real-life conditions.

Are healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and the substantial economic burden they cause inevitable? Far from it! Many such infections are preventable through better hand hygiene and proper disinfection of high-touch surfaces alone. While poor compliance with hand hygiene remains a perennial problem, my focus here is on problems with disinfection of frequently-touched, hard, non-porous environmental surfaces.

We live in a society of excess where we have come to believe that more is always better. I will agree that more is better when it comes to my bank account, the horsepower of my car engine and the size of the fish I just landed. Who doesn’t want to have the biggest fish of the week, weekend or day – especially if there is a friendly competition going on! I do not want to see larger numbers on the scale, my age and my utilities bills and I absolutely draw the line at getting into a “numbers” competition over who has the most claims on a disinfectant label.

I am constantly amazed by society’s obsession with floors. “Look how shiny that floor is!” “It’s so clean you could eat off of it!” “OMG did you see the scuff marks?!” I was once dragged into a store with a sales rep I was working with – I think it was a Canadian Tire store, but feel free to envision Wal-Mart, Target or any other large box store....and without a word of a lie there were no less than 5 grown men standing in a circle around 2 scuff marks no more than 3 inches long. Picture it: 5 men, 2 scuff marks and 1 highly type A female blocking an isle talking about the best way to remove these pesky little floor blemishes. Suffice it to say the conversation lasted far longer than necessary.

Let me ask you a question, what first comes to mind when you think of “clean”? Is it the smell of lemons? The fragrance of pine? Or, the overwhelming odour of chlorine? For many of us, the smell of clean is born out of what our parents used to clean our childhood homes. For me, the smell of vinegar instantly takes me back in time to my mother cleaning the windows in our turn-of-the-century farm house. In a way, we have each been brainwashed to associate a freshly cleaned room or surface with a particular smell. But does it have to be this way? Luckily, no.

This week for a change of pace I have included a video – I’ve watched it a zillion times and always chuckle and hope you will too. But before you click the play button and start dancing to the catchy tune let me ask you a question. Have you ever stood back after cleaning your bathroom or kitchen and commended yourself on a job well done? I’m sure we’ve all thought “WOW! Look how shiny everything looks! Did I ever out do myself this week!” In that same instance did the thought ever cross your mind..... “I wonder what I have left behind?”

At the beginning of nearly every speaking opportunity I have, I choose to review some key trends and the corresponding implications surrounding the use of disinfectants and their role in infection prevention and control. I believe that by addressing these few points it sets the stage for a hopefully informative, educational session.

For any of our readers living in Canada, many of you have no doubt been blindsided by the barrage of news stories emanating from the Ontario healthcare facilities that are currently in the clutches of Clostridium difficile outbreaks. For this reason, we are breaking from our scheduled topic of discussion to address this infection prevention and control issue that’s dominating the news.

What words pop into your head when you think of summer? Ranked in no particular order, I think of: flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables, sun tan lotion, smog, boating, bug repellent and beer. Aside from their association with summer, they are also all linked with emitting Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), well except for smog which is a result of air pollution due to VOCs.

For some, when reading the title for this week’s blog, the nursery rhyme “What Are Little Boys Made Of?” may have popped into your head and we all know the answer - Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails, that’s what little boys are made of! Amazingly, two centuries after this rhyme was written, boys and frogs still have a lot in common.

Please take a look at the picture of my home bathroom. (Yes, I cleaned it prior to taking the picture) Can you tell me exactly what germs are lurking on the surface? No? Why not? Oh, right...bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. are microscopic organisms invisible to the naked eye. So if neither of us can assertively identify which microorganisms are present, how can we be expected to select just the right disinfectant with the appropriate germicidal claims to kill precisely what’s on the surface? The quick and easy answer: We can’t. Therefore, our best option is to use disinfectants that are broadly effective against all of the different classes of pathogens typically present in the environment if we wish to confidently eradicate all of them from the surface.

The Porsche (that’s pronounced Porsche-eh) 911 Turbo has been my dream car for years. Despite numerous remodels and refreshments to the car, it remains the epitome of sports car performance in my eyes. That’s right, I’m not only an infection prevention and control advocate, I’m also a car enthusiast. For many car enthusiasts, performance is judged by a simple figure...”What’s the 0-60mph time?” For the current Porsche 911 Turbo, it’s 3.4sec. That’s blisteringly quick. That means you could merge into major highway traffic in under 4 seconds from a dead stop on the side of the road. I’m sure that type of speed could come in handy for many of us when weaving through traffic during rush hour. Interestingly enough, disinfectants are often judged very similarly – by one simple figure...”What’s the contact time?” The shorter the contact time, the better performing the disinfectant is considered to be. However, unlike the speed or performance of an exotic sports car, which is rarely if ever utilized on a regular basis, the speed with which a disinfectant can exhibit its killing ability on hapless microorganisms is a critically important necessity. The more quickly a disinfectant inactivates pathogens on a surface, the more likely its use will effectively eradicate harmful bugs from the surface thus preventing transmission to other surfaces or people. In plain language, a disinfectant with a 1-5 minute contact time can be confidently relied upon to effectively disinfect the surface because its use is easily complied with. A single application of the product will result in the surface being sufficiently wetted for the required period of time which equals dead bugs and no transmission. Disinfectants with long, unrealistic contact times (ie. 10 mins) may require multiple reapplications of the disinfectant in order to keep the surface adequately saturated with the disinfectant for the requisite period of time. Ultimately, the proper use of these products is rarely complied with and thus disinfection is often not achieved. Far too often healthcare institutions utilize these slow or poor performing disinfectants resulting in incomplete or ineffective disinfection.