Determining the Virus-Eliminating Effectiveness of Liquid Hygienic Handwash and Handrub Agents Using the Fingerpads of Adult Volunteers

Hands play an important role in the spread of many viruses, thus proper and regular handwashing is considered crucial in preventing such spread, particularly in health-care settings, day-care centers, and food-handling establishments. Many viruses that are known to spread through contaminated hands can remain infectious for several hours on human hands, and also may be more resistant than the bacteria commonly used to evaluate the germicidal activity of handwash and handrub agents (1,2, 3). Contaminated hands also can readily transfer infectious virus to other surfaces (1,2). Hand antisepsis has been shown to interrupt the spread of viral infections (4). Standardized methods to assess the virus-eliminating potential of handwash and handrub agents have not been available and this test method addresses the gap.