Barneys Feature Blog: With special guest blogger Cassandra Southwell – B Med Sci Hons
The cycle of infection relies on 3 key factors – a pathogen capable of causing infection (e.g. COVID 19), a susceptible host (someone like yourself), and a mode of transmission providing the pathogen access to the host. As most people are infectious before they become symptomatic this cycle is constantly in motion.
In terms of transmission there are generally 3 major ways pathogens can be transported around the environment:
- Contact Transmission – direct transmission from an infected person to a new host (think skin to skin contact like a handshake) or indirect where the pathogen is transmitted via an inanimate surface (think high frequency touch points e.g. door handles, buttons on elevators, etc).
- Droplet Transmission – when we cough, sneeze and talk, the droplets we generate can be projected over large distances. These can be inhaled by people walking by or can land on inanimate surfaces (this is why cough and sneeze into our elbow to help capture those droplets).
- Airborne Transmission – small particles suspended in the air can travel via air currents. This is hard to minimise without the assistance of negative pressure (specialised ventilation systems).
Therefore, the easiest way to minimise infection is to break this cycle by stopping the transmission of pathogens and the best way to do that is by performing hand hygiene to reduce direct and indirect contact transmission, and to clean and disinfect our inanimate surfaces, reducing the risk of droplet transmission and indirect contact transmission.
When we look at cleaning and disinfecting our inanimate surfaces, we must first understand that they are two different processes. Cleaning is the physical removal of soil (e.g. dust, dirt, etc.) whereas disinfection is killing or inactivating microorganisms (e.g. bacteria, viruses, etc.). In general, cleaning is achieved with detergent and disinfection is achieved with a disinfectant.
In the salon we have 2 types of surfaces; low frequency touch points which are rarely ever touched with hands e.g. the floor, ceilings, etc, and high frequency touch points which are touched often, e.g. light switches, door handles, etc. As microorganisms are spread via contact, the high frequency touch points therefore carry greater risk of transmission of infection. Hence, in normal daily settings these 2 surfaces are treated differently; low frequency touch points are cleaned, whereas the high frequency touch points are cleaned and disinfected. The only time this changes is if you have a known outbreak – in these situations all surfaces are treated as high frequency touch points and disinfected.
As floors are low frequency touch points, cleaning with a detergent will be sufficient to reduce contamination. Alkaline detergents are great at breaking down proteins, grease, etc and acidic detergents are great at removing rust, calcium deposits, etc. It is important to note that products with an alkaline or acidic pH can also simultaneously affect the surfaces themselves. In beauty salons rust and/or body fluid spills on the floors are rare, hence a neutral detergent like Sonidet would be better suited as it would not cause damage to the floors.
While choosing a detergent may be straight forward, when choosing a disinfectant there are some considerations we first need to make; is it a 2-step or 2-in-1 product, what is the contact time, what kill claims does it have, what is the active ingredient, and will it damage surfaces and equipment?
Hard surface disinfectants fall into 2 categories, 2-step and 2-in-1 disinfectants. Most disinfectants fall into the ‘2-step’ category; they don’t work if the surface is soiled or dirty. Therefore, we call them ‘2-step’ because disinfection requires 2 steps – cleaning the surface with detergent to remove soil first, followed by disinfection to kill the microorganisms. However, some disinfectants are not deactivated by the presence of soil – these are called 2-in-1 disinfectants because they still kill microorganisms in the presence of soil or ‘dirty conditions’. They are called 2-in-1 disinfectants because they have an in-built surfactant system which acts as a detergent, reducing the need for cleaning prior to disinfection. 2-in-1 disinfectants like Viraclean® save time, and therefore money.
As disinfectants are responsible for killing microorganisms, they have what is known as ‘kill claims’. Depending on their classification some disinfectants do not have specific kill claims, it is important to be aware of this and whether there are specific pathogens you should be concerned about. A big consideration to make is around seasonal pathogens like cold and flu, or outbreak situations such as COVID 19 or gastro. For example, before and during cold and flu season it would be important to use a disinfectant like Viraclean® with a specific kill claim against influenza.
You will often see a product claiming to remove “99.9% of germs” or “99.99% of germs” but, when looking at these numbers you might ask how important that extra decimal place is. Well, it turns out that it’s extremely important – in the two statements described above there is a difference by a factor of 10 which means a 99.99% claim will remove 10 times more germs than a 99.9% claim!
To achieve these kill claims a disinfectant also has a contact time – this is the minimum amount of time the disinfectant must be in contact with the surface to disinfect it. Think of fly spray as a disinfectant for bigger bugs – when you spray a fly it flies around crazily, then falls to the ground, and twitches before dying. From the time you sprayed the fly, until the time it stopped moving, is that fly spray’s contact time or kill time.
It is critical to abide by the contact time of the disinfectant or you will leave yourself vulnerable to the risk of transmission. Some products have different contact times for individual pathogens while some have one contact time that includes ALL their kill claims. As many people don’t know when they’re infectious, let alone what infectious agent they are carrying, this can become problematic. Using a product like Viraclean® which has one contact time for all its claims reduces confusion, making it safer and easier for everyone.