Removal of Serratia marcescens (Enterobacteriaceae) from hands contaminated with different degermants

Abstract

The effectiveness of soap, 70% ethyl alcohol, 10% povidone-iodine (PVP-I), 4% chlorhexidine gluconate in removing a strain of Serratia marcescens (Enterobacteriaceae) from contaminated hands of five volunteers was studied. The experiments were performed using a Latin square statistical design with two 5 x 4 randomized blocks. The removal rates of Serratia marcescens were estimated by analysis of variance. In the first block (lightly-contamination hand), the use of hand-cleansing agents resulted in 2.77 (PVP-I and alcohol), 2.38 (chlorhexidine), and 1.88 (soap) log10 reduction factors (RF) in counts of Serratia marcescens applied to the fingertips. There were no significant differences between treatments (P > .05). In the second block (heavily-contamination hand), PVP-I (RF, 5.71) and alcohol (RF, 5.08) were significantly more effective than chlorhexidine (RF, 2.80) and soap (RF, 2.48) (P > .05). The results suggest that PVP-I and 70% ethyl alcohol may be the most effective for removing this Serratia marcescens strain from heavily contaminated hands