Arguments for alcoholic hand disinfection

The non-aqueous use of ethanol or propanols offers various advantages over washing hands with either unmedicated or medicated soap in both hygienic and surgical hand disinfection. Alcohols exert the strongest and fastest activity against a wide spectrum of bacteria and fungi (but not bacterial spores) as well as enveloped (but less so against non-enveloped) viruses, being little influenced by interfering substances. They are of low toxicity and offer acceptable skin tolerability when made up with suitable emollients. The mode of their application is simple and three to four times more economical of time than wash procedures, features which help to increase the compliance with the rules of hand hygiene. (C) 2001 The Hospital Infection Society.