Effectiveness of Hand Sanitizers with and without Organic Acids for Removal of Rhinovirus from Hands

These studies evaluated the effectiveness of ethanol hand sanitizers with or without organic acids to remove detectable rhinovirus from the hands and prevent experimental rhinovirus infection. Ethanol hand sanitizers were significantly more effective than hand washing with soap and water. The addition of organic acids to the ethanol provided residual virucidal activity that persisted for at least 4 h. Whether these treatments will reduce rhinovirus infection in the natural setting remains to be determined. Direct hand-to-hand transmission of virus appears to play an important role in the spread of rhinovirus infections. The pur-pose of the studies described in this article was to compare the immediate and residual effectiveness of different hand treat-ments for removal of rhinovirus from the hands. Comparison of hand washing with hand disinfectant for removal of virus from hands. The fingers of 95 healthy volun-teers were contaminated with 125 50 % tissue culture infective doses (TCID50) of rhinovirus, type 39, by placing the virus into a “cup ” formed by the tip of the index finger, middle finger an