Antimicrobial efficacy and systematic use of disinfectants

Microbial contamination is of critical importance when it comes to production processes, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Avoidance of microbial contamination throughout production processes is therefore crucial. However, what are the essentials of an effective hygiene regime? And what kind of hygiene measures are to be taken in order to be safe and effective? This work demonstrates how a systematic review of monitoring data, sources of contamination, efficacy of biocidal agents and efficacy testing of disinfectants according to European norms can help to set up a customised and effective hygiene regime. Antimicrobial efficacy of biocidal actives will be looked at in more detail, as this provides the data for an appropriate choice of disinfectants in the first place. Furthermore, sources of microbial contamination will be presented in a systematic way and it is demonstrated how these data may be used for a systematic risk assessment of any production site. A systematic review of microbial contamination derived from the monitoring data is provided and it will be demonstrated how monitoring data can be easily used to set up effective hygiene measures. Last but not least, European norms (EN) used for the overall evaluation of antimicrobial efficacy of disinfectants will be discussed.