UK’s top supplier of disinfectant wipes partnered with Cardiff University to produce clinical proof that a sporicidal wipe can kill the resilient bacterium, Clostridium Difficile. Their award winning partnership has yielded more positive outcomes than they hoped for. It began as a bold marketing pitch: Clinell Sporicidal wipes are best at disinfecting hospitals from notorious bacteria. That pitch was backed by laboratory studies from no less than Cardiff University in Wales, but the market has grown skeptical.
Hospitals demanded clinical—not just laboratory—proof that the product could kill the problematic and resilient bacterium, Clostridium Difficile (C. diff), which has claimed thousands of lives around the world.
Clinell’s manufacturer, GAMA Healthcare, moved quickly to put substance in its slogan. With a grant from Innovate UK, the government’s innovation body, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs UK (Defra UK), GAMA Healthcare entered a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Cardiff University to establish the necessary proof GAMA’s market required.
Skepticism about the product was understandable, considering the C. diff outbreaks that health agencies all over the world had to manage in the past couple of years. About 25000 people die from serious resistant bacterial infections acquired in hospitals, according to the World Health Organization-Europe (WHO-Europe).
‘Antibiotic resistance increases the costs of treatment because of longer hospital stays, more expensive antibiotic drug use and treatment, as well as indirect costs to families and society,’ WHO-Europe said.
Resilient
Two strains of C. diff—tagged as responsible for the global epidemic—have been found to be resistant to the antibiotic Fluoroquinolone, which until the early 2000s was being prescribed to fight the bacteria, research from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute revealed.
It also found that one of the two C. diff strains, called 027, produces spores that are highly infectious and resistant, allowing it to survive basic disinfection for weeks. Spores of the bacteria are usually passed out of the body through a person’s stool, and once a person touches the surface of a contaminated object, the person could risk being a carrier of the bacteria or becoming infected.
What began as a bold marketing pitch is now saving hospitals from the bacterium Clostridium Difficile.
The interconnectedness of the global healthcare system was a contributing factor to the quick spread of the bacteria in healthcare facilities in North America, Australia and Europe.
In efforts to contain C. diff, few paid much attention to the possibility of using sporicidal wipes. One of them was GAMA Healthcare, a UK market leader in the antimicrobial wet wipe product industry and the largest disinfectant wet wipe supplier to the National Health Service (NHS).
GAMA Healthcare designed Clinell Sporicidal wipes to specifically target C. diff. Inactive when dry, the wipes produce peracetic acid as they are wet with water, killing C. diff spores and other known microorganisms. Its product description highlights how the wipes are ‘a direct and safe alternative to chlorine products.’ Despite its stature as the UK’s top supplier and exporter of disinfectant wipes, GAMA Healthcare did not have an in-house laboratory. All related work, including product development and testing, had to be outsourced to Cardiff University’s research group. Over time, the company saw the need to have its own facilities so that it could stay ahead of the competition.
The two-year KTP between GAMA Healthcare and Cardiff University filled this need. Aside from producing clinical proof, the KTP allowed GAMA to design its own research and development facility
so it could create new products and validate their efficacy through an established protocol.
In the spotlight: Rise of the superbugs
Antibiotics have been the key to treating bacterial infections, including fatal ones, but after its discovery over 70 years ago, the solution has become, in certain situations, a major problem.
The indiscriminate use of antibiotics on humans and animals has caused some bacteria, like C. diff, to become resistant to what was supposed to eliminate them. Antibiotic resistance can
be transmitted between bacteria, particularly in the healthcare environment. Because of their constant exposure to pathogens in their workplace setting, healthcare workers face the
possibility of being infected or becoming a carrier of antibiotic-resistant bacteria daily.
Thus, it is imperative to have effective disinfectants that when combined with effective cleaning, can reduce the number of pathogens from surfaces and equipment in hospitals.
‘Infections from resistant bacteria can be difficult and sometimes impossible to cure, and they are increasing,’ WHO-Europe wrote in a briefing paper.
‘Meanwhile, research into the development of new antibiotics that will work is very costly and lengthy, and resistance often develops rapidly after new antibiotics are marketed.’ The use of
effective cleaning/disinfectant products offers a cost-effective preventive measure against AMR pathogens.