The results of a clinical trial at Lancashire Teaching Hospital Trust, of Primel Active Hand Shield (PAHS) technology, have now been announced. The solution demonstrated an average of 91% higher antimicrobial efficacy after 1 hour, compared to the current standard of care hand sanitiser at 15 minutes.
These results show that the hygiene product has both a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity and long lasting (residual) efficacy, providing improved protection for patients. Use of this product has the potential to improve patient safety, addressing the current challenges of hand hygiene compliance by healthcare workers, and reduce the cost and burden of healthcare associated infections. The trial also demonstrated that PAHS technology has broad spectrum efficacy with sustained protection against pathogens such as MRSA, Clostridium difficile and norovirus.
“With hospital-acquired infection rates such as Clostridium difficile currently increasing annually within UK hospitals, and the challenges of spreading antimicrobial resistance, new solutions are needed to cut infection risks in healthcare settings,” explains Prof Mark Wilcox. “The results from the Lancashire Teaching Hospital trial show Primel Active Hand Shield’s superior efficacy over current alcohol hand hygiene sanitisers that are in widespread use in the NHS. This novel hand hygiene product offers the chance to break the infection transmission cycle and, importantly, provide increased safety for patients, healthcare professionals and visitors. Going forward, infection prevention guidelines need to consider this novel way of improving hand hygiene,” he concludes.
The Lancashire Teaching Hospital Trust’s trial results demonstrated that the application of PAHS provides users with superior protection against a broad spectrum of pathogens, including some of the most drug-resistant microbes, on immediate application and over a continuous period as well as showing less transfer of pathogens to surfaces, compared to a traditional hand sanitiser.
After immediate application Primel Active Hand Shield was 98% effective and after 1 hour still 92% effective, therefore maintaining protection on hands better than a standard alcohol-based hand sanitiser, which dropped its efficacy considerably from 97% to 68%, respectively in 15 minutes. In addition, Primel Active Hand Shield proved it was on average 76% more effective than traditional hand sanitisers in reducing the transmission of microbes from contaminated hands to a surface.
“In collaboration with Primel, we developed this trial to measure the immediate and residual antimicrobial activity on the hands of staff treated with Primel Active Hand Shield in comparison with an alcohol-based hand sanitiser,” explains Dr. David Orr. “The results from this trial have been very encouraging, and the feedback from our staff was very positive. Poor hand hygiene compliance is a widespread problem in healthcare services and is nationally reported to be between 40% to 60%.1
"The deployment of this product could dramatically reduce the infection control risk associated with poor hand-hygiene compliance, because, even if hands are decontaminated less frequently than currently recommended, the product will continue to provide protection. My hope is that we can expand the use of Primel’s product more widely across the hospital and therefore start to tackle the challenge of bringing down HCAI rates and importantly provide better safety & security for our patients .”
“This trial has demonstrated that Primel Active Hand Shield offers superior protection to the more traditional alcohol-based hand sanitisers thanks to our key differentiator: increased sustained efficacy against a broad spectrum of pathogens,” says Arjun Luthra, CEO of Primel.
“By offering this innovative technology, our solution adds an additional dimension to hand hygiene, by allowing users to reduce the transmission of pathogens on surfaces by their touch to further enhance the effective stopping of the spread of pathogens. The next step for us is to roll out our Active Hand Shield solution throughout the NHS, while also implementing a change at policy level, working with all UKHSA stakeholders. Our organisation is fully focused on tackling the continued financial burden whilst reducing the patient risk of HAIs with breakthrough technology.”
Reference
1. NHS England GE3 Hand Hygiene Technology Scheme: rationale for inclusion section. March 2016. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ge3-hand-hygien-tchnlgy.pdf.
