Clostridium difficile Eradication Program

Yes, Bioquell’s HPV is sporicidal. It has been approved by the US EPA as such and has extensive efficacy over spores, including Anthrax. The latest UK guidelines for controlling C. difficile recommend consideration of HPV to provide total disinfection of the environment/equipment in single rooms/isolation wards used to care for patients with C. difficile (UK Department of Health and Health Protection Agency: Clostiridum difficile – how to deal with the problem).

The hospital-wide introduction of Bioquell HPV was associated with a reduction in the incidence of C. difficile infection in a study published in 2008 from a US hospital (Boyce JM, Havill NL, Otter JA et al. Impact of hydrogen peroxide vapor room decontamination on Clostridium difficile environmental contamination and transmission in a healthcare setting. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2008; 29: 723-729). Two papers presented at conferences since then by US hospitals report significant reductions in C. difficile and the risk of VRE acquisition (Passaretti CL, Otter JA, Lipsett P et al., Adherence to Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor (HPV) decontamination reduces VRE acquisition in high-risk units. 48 th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Washington DC, USA, 2008. Abstract K4124b; Manian FA, Griesenauer S, Senkel D. Impact of an intensive terminal cleaning and disinfection (C/D) protocol involving selected hospital rooms on endemic nosocomial infection (NI) rates of common pathogens at a tertiary care medical center. 5th Decennial Meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), Atlanta, GA, USA. Abstract LB6). A recent letter from a UK hospital reported that a reduction in the incidence of C. difficile was associated with the implementation of Bioquell HPV (Cooper T, O’Leary M, Yezli S, Otter JA. The impact of environmental decontamination using hydrogen peroxide vapour on the incidence of Clostridium difficile infection in one hospital trust. J Hosp Infect accepted). Other research investigating the impact of Bioquell on endemic rates of infection is ongoing.