This communication is one of several which we are making available to the veterinary professional as part of an initiative to increase awareness and stimulate best practice process improvements.

This letter discusses those products that are necessary to maintain high level disinfection standards in the veterinary practice and their cost implications.

As a practicing veterinary nurse, I still do weekend locums to help out friends, I have made an in-depth analysis of the product usage necessary to maintain high level disinfection and best practice hygiene procedures in the small to average sized companion animal practice. This covers cold sterilizing of instruments and equipment, high level disinfection of apparatus such as anesthetic machines, humidifiers, endoscopes, endotrachael tubes, operating tables, etc, etc; cleaning and disinfection of all areas including cages, wards, including isolation, etc, etc. and skin decontamination pre-op and generally. In other words everything! Some of you may be pleasantly surprised to know that even using the very best products money can buy it should cost no more than R25.00 a day. That's affordable!

Don't be tempted to try and save pennies on cheap products because that is all you will save. All “bargains” come with the unseen reservation “terms and conditions apply”. With the type of products concerned that usually means very limited performance in spectrum and kill and sometimes some very unpleasant side effects. It's just not worth it. Pine gel is an example which comes up occasionally as the “disinfectant we have used for years”. Sykes G (1965), in his book Disinfection & Sterilisation states that pine oil disinfectants cannot be considered to be particularly useful for general disinfection purposes and Reddish (1941) advises against them in surgery and skin disinfection. They may be adequate for some applications but not in a veterinary practice. So why are they used; because they are cheap? I looked up the price of a litre on the Internet and taking the recommended concentration into account it worked out at over R4.00 a working litre making it the most expensive disinfectant product I know.

We never know what walks or is carried in through the door until after a diagnosis has been made and samples reported upon.

This means the potential biological risk is already on the premises. In addition the size of the biological challenge at times may be low but equally it can be high and there is no way of making an immediate assessment. Common sense therefore tells us to prepare for at least an intermediate risk and a high level risk in critical areas such as surgery, recovery, isolation and ICU.

The F10 disinfectant range is quite unique and by far the best I have known in all of my years as a veterinary nurse. High performance coupled with being ultra safe to use and apply makes them so versatile with an ever increasing range of applications. F10 disinfectants are the only products that I know of which fully complies with the MEDCO recommendation for disinfectants and antiseptics for use in a veterinary practice.

F 1 0 S C a n d F 1 0 S C X D V E T E R I N A RY DISINFECTANTS will kill a bacterial (Pseudomonas spp.) load of 1,000's in 60 seconds, of 100,000's in 5 minutes, of 1,000,000's in 10 minutes AND at a kill rate of 99,9999%. This is a tremendous depth of performance. It will also kill fungi (e.g. Aspergillus, Microsporum, Trichophyton spp), yeasts and moulds (e.g. Candida spp), viruses (e.g. Parvo, Avian Influenza, Herpes spp), and spores (e.g. Aspergillus, Bacillus). MIC studies shows the gram positive and negative bacterial depth of performance quite clearly in Fig. A If you consider this performance an overkill you would be under estimating the potential threat levels. A broad spectrum product that can deliver indepth performance within a practical contact time is an essential, not a nice to have requirement.

Other F10 disinfectant products include F10 SKIN PREP SOLUTION, F10 ODOUR ELIMINATOR, and a new product F10 DISINFECTANT AEROSOL/ FOGGER (proven to be effective for example in disinfecting ventilators).

F919SC DEGREASER/CLEANER has been especially formulated to remove biofilm and when used in a “deep clean” in conjunction with F10 disinfectants can eliminate this risk. Biofilm is a complex aggregation of microorganisms marked by the excretion of a protective and adhesive matrix. Biofilms are also often characterized by surface attachment, structural heterogeneity, genetic diversity, complex community interactions, and an extracellular matrix of polymeric substances. There is an increasing awareness in a health environment of the need to deal effectively with this very difficult problem. Most cleaners will not penetrate the biofilm.

F10 HAND SCRUB for pre-op skin decontamination, F10 ANTISEPTIC LIQUID SOAP as a general purpose high level hand soap and F10 HAND GEL for interpatient hand disinfection. They have fast kill rates of 100 times reduction of bacteria and fungi in 30 seconds. This reduced contact time makes them a welcome alternative for those theatre staff who have to wash their hands many times a day. F10 hand decontamination hand products are replacing chlorhexidine based products particularly by those staff members who cannot tolerate skin irritations often associated with chlorhexidine.

As is the case with all F10 products they are non-toxic and safe to use in the presence of animals and they are people as well as environmentally friendly being nonirritating and biodegradable.

You will find the products just about anywhere you go!