US hospital keeps bugs at bay with Byotrol technology
Technology has helped to keep a US hospital free from MRSA, VRE and C.difficile for two years
Byotrol’s anti-microbial technology was used at Monroe Hospital, Bloomington Indiana, where 13,000 patients are treated every year and would ordinarily be at high risk of hospital acquired infection because it undertakes around 3,000 bone and joint surgical procedures including hip replacements every year. Yet despite this, there has never been an outbreak of hospital acquired infection.
The success of the results has led to a further pilot study in the UK. Preliminary results have suggested that that better results can be achieved by using Byotrol’s anti-microbial technology compared to using other chlorine-based cleaning products. The technology continues to kill micro-organisms for days after it has been applied and even after it has dried. In comparison, a disinfectant such as bleach is only effective for a maximum of a couple of minutes after it has been applied, the company says. After that micro-organisms start to recolonise on a surface.
The Byotrol technology is being piloted by Synergy Health for the NHS and today the company has revealed that a study into Byotrol technology at a leading teaching hospital in the North West of England has shown extremely promising initial results.
Preliminary results including twelve weeks of data are planned to be published in early December and according to Richard Deed of TrusTECH, the NHS organisation supervising the study. “The early results are extremely encouraging when compared to chlorine based cleaning. One of the biggest challenges facing the NHS at the moment is to find a technology that offers the biocidal performance of chlorine based products without the damage to equipment & fabric associated with using such products. If the results from this study continue to follow the trends shown to date, Byotrol could well be the answer to this challenge.”
Byotrol is a series of patented technologies that involves a non-chemical combination (sequestration) to an inert polymer (the backbone) of a selection of chosen biocides or active agents.
This combination creates a thermally and chemically stable species that exists as a colloidal micelle in aqueous solutions. In lay terms Byotrol is not a new unknown chemical but a structured combination of existing and well-known ingredients combined together in a new way that makes them much more effective. This means it’s based on materials which are tried, trusted and have already received regulatory approval.
The polymer is typically hydrophobic in nature and preferentially adheres affixes the Byotrol molecule to hard surfaces and organic materials. This hydrophobic quality also makes the biocides water resistant. All of this means the biocides remain in place and effective for longer. In turn this creates an incredibly hostile environment for microbes and a long-lasting residual anti microbial action. (It lasts for seven days even on stainless steel and glass).
