TY - JOUR AU - Suchomel, Miranda AU - Eggers, Maren AU - Maier, Steffen AU - Kramer, Axel AU - Dancer, Stephanie AU - Pittet, Didier T1 - Evaluation of World Health Organization–Recommended Hand Hygiene Formulations T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2020 VL - 26 IS - 9 SP - 2064 SN - 1080-6059 AB - As a result of the coronavirus disease pandemic, commercial hand hygiene products have become scarce and World Health Organization (WHO) alcohol-based hand rub formulations containing ethanol or isopropanol are being produced for hospitals worldwide. Neither WHO formulation meets European Norm 12791, the basis for approval as a surgical hand preparation, nor satisfies European Norm 1500, the basis for approval as a hygienic hand rub. We evaluated the efficacy of modified formulations with alcohol concentrations in mass instead of volume percentage and glycerol concentrations of 0.5% instead of 1.45%. Both modified formulations met standard requirements for a 3-minute surgical hand preparation, the usual duration of surgical hand treatment in most hospitals in Europe. Contrary to the originally proposed WHO hand rub formulations, both modified formulations are appropriate for surgical hand preparation after 3 minutes when alcohol concentrations of 80% wt/wt ethanol or 75% wt/wt isopropanol along with reduced glycerol concentration (0.5%) are used. KW - 2019 novel coronavirus disease KW - coronavirus disease KW - COVID-19 KW - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - viruses KW - respiratory infections KW - zoonoses KW - World Health Organization KW - WHO formulation KW - modified KW - hand hygiene KW - surgical hand preparation KW - alcohol-based hand rub KW - hand sanitizer KW - glycerol DO - 10.3201/eid2609.201761 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/9/20-1761_article ER - End of Reference