Deb Group donates hand sanitiser to West Africa

Deb Group has donated more than 18,000 bottles of Deb InstantFoam hand sanitiser to the World Health Organization (WHO) to assist efforts in combating the spread of Ebola virus in West African countries.

Organised by the WHO and supported by members of Private Organizations for Patient Safety (POPS), of which Deb Group is a founding member, the donation initiative is necessary to support those healthcare providers and communities directly involved with handling the deadly Ebola epidemic that has already claimed over 4500 lives.

While the Ebola disease has a high mortality rate, it is claimed the virus itself is easy to kill outside the body by soap, alcohol-based disinfectants, bleach, sunlight and high temperatures or drying. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, “Ebola virus survives only a short time on surfaces that are in the sun or have dried. It can survive for a longer time on clothes or materials which have been stained with blood or other bodily fluids.”

For many healthcare providers and communities dealing with the Ebola virus, hand hygiene is an important part of a multifaceted infection-prevention program. But ready availability of soap and water is not always possible or convenient in parts of West Africa. Therefore, the use of alcohol-based disinfectants, which require no soap or water, can often be the easiest, quickest and most convenient method for providing effective hand hygiene.

Ebola is reported to be an ‘enveloped’ virus which belongs to the family Filoviridae. For effective skin disinfection against all ‘enveloped’ viruses, including family Filoviridae, the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) and the German Association for the Control of Virus Diseases (DVV) have established a set of efficacy testing guidelines. For skin disinfectant products that meet the requirements according to the guideline, they can claim to have been tested and proven to have “limited virucidal” properties against all ‘enveloped’ viruses, including Ebola virus.

As ‘Deb InstantFoam’ hand sanitiser has been successfully tested by scientific laboratories according to the RKI/DVV guidelines, according to Deb Group, it is effective at inactivating all ‘enveloped’ viruses, which includes Ebola virus. Bryan Anderson, Deb Group CEO, commented: “The Ebola outbreak is devastating. Deb, along with other POPS partners, is working with the WHO to share resources with countries currently in need of hand sanitiser products. Given we have a product that meets the RKI/DVV guidelines, we have provided a donation to the WHO for distribution to where it is needed in West Africa.”

In Australia, Deb has been working closely with major hospitals on day-to-day infection-control procedures. “Developing the best, most-effective hand hygiene protocols is central to infection prevention,” says Steve Saboune, Deb’s CEO Australia and Asia Pacific. “And those processes are the platform of Deb’s research and development that produces hand hygiene products designed to kill and prevent the spread of potentially fatal pathogens.”

For further information about Ebola, Ebola virus and suitable Deb Products, visit www.debgroup.com.