The influence of disinfecting agents on surfaces

In recent years, regulatory authorities have paid particular attention to the examination & validation of disinfection and its products. These products are derived from the pharmaceutical businesses. These organizations must provide sufficient data to support the facts associated with their cleaning and disinfection products. Specific industrial tests and assays are commonly utilized to get these facts checked. One such test for authorizing the activity of disinfectants is the en 1276 assay. It is a quantitative suspension test essentially.

Since cleaning and disinfection processes are used to prevent and control microbial development, there are some Clean-in-place (CIP) procedures, which consist of cleaning with detergent & disinfectant solutions. The next step is to rinse with water to control the microbial contamination.

In the recent pandemic, worries about germs and illnesses have increased manifold. Cleaning and disinfection have been the priority for people all around the world. The authorities also have become aware than ever.

We can see the required criteria for testing and sharing the results with the general public across sectors. The food and beverage industry’s testing standards have gotten a lot of attention recently. In the food sector, surface cleaners and disinfectants are chosen with more excellent care than ever before.

What are disinfectants?

A disinfectant is primarily any chemical agent with the innate ability to destroy germs and make surfaces free of foreign elements. The characters can range from hospital and medical equipment to the cleaning agents in our homes. However, there can be a different disinfectant for every surface.

These agents are used to reduce the number of microorganisms on different surfaces to an acceptable level; the level of surface disinfection directly depends on the abilities of the agents one chooses. Therefore, it is essential to have a cleaning agent that has undergone en 1276 or any similar assay. Chemical type, range of activity, mechanism of action, and technique of microbial death or inactivation are all characteristics that may be used to classify disinfectants.

Types of disinfectants:

some disinfectants are ‘broad-spectrum, which means they can kill vegetative bacteria. While some disinfectants kill bacterial and fungal spores. These agents are known as sporicidal disinfectants. There are also variances in disinfectant viricidal characteristics. The inactivation of virus particles from surfaces is outside the focus of this work.

How effective is the disinfectant?  

There are various parameters to decide whether a disinfectant is suitable for a particular surface or not. The category of microorganism, its microbial population, the type of surface attachment, ‘interfering substances’ disinfectant concentration time, and the disinfectant application method are the standard parameters. Furthermore, there is another point o consideration: the conditions in which these microorganisms are controlled and evaluated for disinfectant efficiency.

The standards:

Microbiologists struggle with a plethora of different & conflicting national and international standards. Not only do these standards differ in terms of methodology, but they also have additional and frequently unreasonable acceptance requirements. For instance, en 1276 assay might be valid across the globe, but it might not be compatible with the norms of a particular lab or, say, a nation. It becomes more challenging to devise a uniform test and results in these situations.

Without a proper worldwide standard, individuals working in this field must take a global strategy that applies to these industries.  

Differences in effectiveness of testing throughout:

Neither EU FDA guidelines precisely specify disinfectant efficacy test criteria; nonetheless, as previously stated, both leading international authorities emphasize the significance of the pharmaceutical producer assessing the performance of the disinfectants. The goal of en 1276 disinfectant efficacy is to show that the disinfectant has the bactericidal, fungicidal, & sporicidal action for controlling microbial contamination.

The lack of a general methodology of the tests causes user and regulatory confusion—the resultant over-specifying of acceptance criteria, selection of unsuitable microbes, and use of non-representative surfaces. As a result, many users may not get adequate disinfectant data, including the rejection of disinfectants that may be safe for use in a cleanroom.

The bottom line:

The en 1276 standard methods are traditional culture-based microbiological techniques. They can be performed in a standard microbiology laboratory as they do not require any particular types of equipment. Most of the procedures are manual, and the microbial strains grow in culture media –

One of the main advantages of the EN tests is that biocide manufacturers and independent testing laboratories can perform them without investing in specialized equipment.