The Terrifying Truth About The Surfaces We Touch
When you last used a washroom, did you think that the door handle was hygienic? Even if it’s cleaned once each day, the handles we use have millions of bacteria on the surface.
With this level of contamination, it’s no surprise that we see infection spread from high-touch surfaces (ref; https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2020posts/smart-cleaning-for-viruses.html ).
For obvious reasons there’s been a huge push for improved hygiene in all multi-user facilities but simply using the same old cleaning methods won’t improve hygiene or reduce your risk of infection.
New technologies, like the Axiene Clean Touch system, offer a step-change in hygiene levels with reduced surface contamination offering better protection for users. This was recently demonstrated in a number of real-life trials at schools, universities, offices and most recently at the Skypark complex in Glasgow.
Installing an Axiene VH01 pull handle on an office door allowed a comparison of cleanliness between an existing, normally cleaned handle and the Axiene handle.
Axiene continually coats the touch surface with a light film of skin-safe disinfectant. The Axiene fluid kills bugs on contact, providing active treatment whenever somebody touches or contaminates the handle surface and as there’s only a light film of fluid, Axiene improves sustainability by using less disinfectant than other products.
Independent lab analysis of surface swabs from the existing handle and Axiene provided results that were a real eye-opener (and quite frightening!).
The lab data from the ongoing tests returned consistent results every week. The existing handle, that was cleaned only once each day, had a massive number of bacteria and fungi on the touch surface. The Axiene handle was, comparatively, spotless!
Swabs from the whole touch surface area on both handles were independently analysed and the results were typically shown as;
Existing handle = > 10,000,000 CFU’s (colony forming units)
Axiene handle = < 10CFU’s
Axiene performs hugely better because it continually replenishes the light fluid film to actively kill bugs compared to a single clean/wipe that then allows bacteria to grow or multiply on the surface.
These results aren’t a surprise and have been repeated in every Axiene comparison test. It proves that cleaning is only hygienic until somebody touches the surface however Axiene active treatment stops literally millions of bugs growing and continually reduces your risk of infection from high-touch door handles.
And what do users think? Well, survey results are very positive, typically;
“Now that I understand how beneficial the product is, I prefer using it when compared to the standard one as it … keeps my mind at rest that the contact point is a continually sanitised surface.”
Are you still happy to touch that dirty door handle or would you prefer to see Axiene in your washroom?