Health. Care. | An Educational Blog

Eradicating pathogens from environmental surfaces in hospitals is a daily fight. Keeping bacteria from reproducing on surfaces, finding reservoirs in hard-to-clean areas, and forming biofilms requires daily disinfection, and ideally, some form of continuous mitigation. In today's post, we will look at the threats posed by bacteria that are even more adept at surviving on surfaces: Spore-forming bacteria, and how hospitals are trying to keep these persistent pathogens from threatening their patients.

Almost every country has a government agency responsible for the health and safety of its citizens and its environment. Where those two departments overlap is often where pesticides and germicides are regulated. At this intersection are those chemicals that, if released into the environment, could cause damage, but which, within healthcare facilities, are required in order to kill dangerous pathogens. In today's post, we'll explore two such departments in neighboring nations, the United States and Canada.

Did everyone notice the uptick in respiratory illnesses (including COVID) that started about a week and a half after Thanksgiving? Many of us might have heard about the flu or a cold or even COVID making its way through a classroom, an office, or an apartment complex. This uptick is predictable, as holidays bring people, and their infections, together. How can we minimize the spread of infection in our homes this upcoming holiday season and go into the new year without sniffles, sneezes, and sore throats? In today's post, we will help you host your friends and family in a hygienic home for the holidays.

After considering a biocide's efficacy, toxicity, kill mechanisms, and bacterial resistance, one must also consider its cost. As with all criteria, it is an issue of balance. If it is an exceptionally effective, broad-spectrum biocide, then a higher cost is tolerable. Add in other benefits and a higher cost becomes even more reasonable. When it comes to silver and copper, the issue of cost in terms of raw materials is obvious. But to do our due diligence, we must look beyond just the raw materials and also look at cost vs. efficacy(and resulting return on investment from additional impact) to see the winner in a clearer light.

Resistance - antibiotic or otherwise - is a game of survival of the fittest. Bacteria strains can be killed by an antibiotic that targets a specific cell mechanism, until a particular bacteria mutates into a strain that is able to survive. Such is the case with MRSA, a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that cannot be killed by methicillin-class antibiotics. But how about resistance to silver and copper as biocides? It turns out that every cell's need for copper makes this metal far, far less likely to cause resistance.

Our bodies are incredible feats of balance, or in biological terms, homeostasis. Completely independent of our conscious minds, our cells are taking in nutrients, reproducing, building proteins, assembling enzymes, all to regulate our organs and systems. Most of the work our bodies perform just needs caloric intake. All the building blocks are there, our systems just need energy. But some of those processes require additional elements that we must ingest specifically for that purpose. These non-organic micronutrients are a variety of metals, since metals' ability to oxidize helps catalyze important biological reactions. But our bodies are not built to tolerate all metals. Some metals can even be toxic. Today we'll explore the relative safety of copper and silver in terms of toxicity to humans.

Today's post covers a vital comparison between copper and silver: Their ability to kill harmful bacteria. Biocidal activity - the active destruction of microorganisms at the cellular level - is the fundamental criteria when considering the two metals as possible infection interventions. We will explore under what conditions these metals kill bacteria in both laboratory and real-life settings. 

Since mankind began using metals, both silver and copper have been used to keep mildew, mold, fungi, and other spoilage at bay. Both metals were even known by the ancients to have anti-infection benefits. We know today that both silver and copper have biocidal properties, and as a result, numerous products have appeared on the marketplace touting these properties as effective in the fight against hospital-acquired infections.  Which is the better choice for use in healthcare facilities? To answer this question, we will compare the two metals across 6 criteria over the coming weeks.  

What makes a surface a Preventive | Biocidal Surface^TM? Four critical characteristics: It is registered by the EPA for public health claims. It actively kills harmful bacteria*. It continues cleaning even after recontamination. Finally, it requires no additional human processes - it performs its sanitizing simply by being installed. 

Sometimes a product comes along that breaks the paradigm. It is so innovative and unexpected that attempts to fit it into an existing market category are impossible. When that happens, a new category must be created to accommodate the new technology. This is the case with surfaces that actively kill bacteria*. They're not a cleanser, per se. They're not really a device, either. What are they? Enter Preventive|Biocidal Surfaces^TM.