Those who have completed our training program or attended any of our lectures would know that we have constantly advocated 'single wipe single surface' meaning that surface cleaning wipes should only ever be used on a single surface i.e. a wipe should not be used to clean one surface and then be used on subsequent surfaces. The reason for this recommendation is due to the risk of transference of micro-organisms from one surface to another on the cleaning wipe.

A recent study conducted by researchers at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom³ has highlighted just how important this recommendation is.

The research team tested seven different detergent wipes in regards to their ability to remove three of the more common hospital super-bugs from surfaces, MRSA, clostridium difficile and acinetobacter baumannii based on the European standard method for chemical disinfectants using a wiping procedure that lasted 10 seconds. Their findings were quite sobering to say the least they found that the wipes were not consistent in the removal of bacteria from hospital surfaces and all wipes tested repeatedly spread significant amounts of bacteria over three consecutive surfaces.


Question: What does this mean?

Answer: It means that if you are using surface wipes across more than one surface when conducting your cleaning procedures you are actually doing more harm than good because you are probably spreading micro-organisms around in your salon rather than removing them.

Professor Jean-Yves Maillard one of the study authors was quoted as saying;

"This is the first report on the effectiveness of the most used detergent wipes in hospitals and what we’ve found is that in all too many cases they are not up to the job, with results showing huge variability.

Our tests show that although the detergent wipes succeed in removing super-bugs, they immediately transfer them when the wipe is used on a different surface.

Wet wipes are generally good products, but the efficacy of these products can be improved,” he said. “Hospital staff must be educated to ensure these products are used properly and will not cause an unnecessary risk to staff and patients a single wipe should not be used on multiple surfaces."

Recommendation

We recommend that all technicians revisit their salon cleaning procedures and ensure that they are complying with our long standing recommendation of 'single wipe single surface' cleaning policy and that cosmetic tattoo trainers review their training programs to ensure that they are in compliance with all contemporary infection prevention practices.

References

1. Derek Darby RN - Australian Registered Health Practitioner & Andrea Darby - Master Medical Tattooist. Potential Causes of Nosocomial Type Infections in the Salon-Clinic Setting. CosmeticTattoo.org Educational Articles. 24/04/2013
2. Uhlemann AC, et al. The environment as an unrecognized reservoir for community-associated methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA300: a case-control study. PLoS One. 2011;6:e22407.
3. Lauren Ramm MPharm, Harsha Siani MPhil, Rebecca Wesgate BSc, Jean-Yves Maillard PhD. Pathogen transfer and high variability in pathogen removal by detergent wipes. American Journal of Infection Control. May 18, 2015

Date of most recent revision: 03/06/2015 (mutatis mutandis)
Original publication date: 03/06/2015

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