TUESDAY, March 11, 2003 (HealthDayNews) --Washing your hands with plain old soap and water may be the best way to rid yourself of anthrax spores if you've been exposed to the bacteria.
The next best method was a 2 percent chlorhexidine gluconate preparation, while an alcohol wipe was not effective at all, according to a study in the March 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"This is an important research article about hygienic measures for personnel who are in contact with anthrax," says Dr. Tareg Bey, associate clinical professor at the University of California at Irvine and one of only about 200 board-certified medical toxicologists in the United States. "It underscores the need for appropriate protective gear/garments -- in this case, gloves and the right choice of disinfectant."
Officials recommend that people who might come in contact with the bacteria, such as health-care workers, use gloves and wash their hands both before and after contact with potentially contaminated surfaces or lesions. Despite these guidelines, the study authors point out that there wasn't much data on how effective antiseptics are against this organism.
The authors of the study decided to test the recommendations using spores of a different bacteria, Bacillus atrophaeus, as a surrogate for anthrax.
"It seems to be a reasonably good surrogate. We use it here, as well, for certain experiments," says Andrew Cannons, scientific director of the University of South Florida Center for Biological Defense in Tampa. "I would think the results would be reasonably similar as for anthrax."
If anything, he adds, B. atrophaeus may be slightly hardier, and therefore more difficult to wash away, than its infamous cousin.
Healthy adult volunteers were asked to wash their hands with three different hand hygiene products: a waterless rub containing 61 percent ethyl alcohol, a 2 percent chlorhexidine gluconate preparation, and an antibacterial microfiber towel that released liquid bleach. A non-antimicrobial soap was used as a control.
The volunteers were tested for spores after washing with each product for 10, 30, and 60 seconds. Six volunteers were evaluated for each product.
Washing with the chlorhexidine preparation and the soap-and-water for 10, 30, or 60 seconds was effective in eliminating the bacteria from volunteers' hands. The bleach-containing towels were more effective the longer they were used. The ethyl alcohol rub was not effective.
"We're talking about a mechanical thing. Washing your hands under a tap is going to remove spores," Cannons says. "If you wipe with an antibacterial wipe, the spores will stay."
However, Dr. Nammalwar Sriranganathan, an associate professor of microbiology at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., cautions that you should not scrub
yourself when washing. "When you scrub your hands, it will cause minor
abrasions, and the organism can enter," he says.
According to the authors, this study provides the first direct evidence supporting the CDC's recommendations that health-care workers should wear gloves when touching potentially contaminated surfaces and that they should also wash their hands with soap and water after removing the gloves.
Certainly the results and the recommendations are in line with procedures at the University of South Florida's Center for Biological Defense.
"If we're working with anthracis, we will use double gloves and always wash with soap and water before leaving the lab," Cannons says. "That's pretty standard."
Meanwhile, scientists at the American Society for Microbiology's Biodefense Research Meeting in Baltimore this week have come up with novel ideas for prevention, treatment, and cleanup of anthrax.
Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, for instance, are using a common food item -- spinach -- to help develop a safer vaccine for anthrax. Purified antigen (PA) is an essential component of the anthrax toxin and is currently used as a vaccine, only with heady side effects. Scientists have found that a genetically engineered tobacco mosaic virus inserted into a spinach plant instructs the plant to make pieces of (PA), which can be purified and used in a vaccine.
Other researchers reporting at the same meeting have initial indications that treating inhalation anthrax patients with a combination of antibiotics and antibodies could increase their chances of surviving.
Finally, the Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide (VHP) technology, billed as a safer and more environmentally friendly way of decontaminating buildings, successfully cleaned a 1.4 million-cubic-foot government facility with no apparent damage to furniture, artwork, or computers. The area was divided into 250,000-cubic-foot zones, which each took four to 12 hours to decontaminate.
More information
For more on anthrax, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
