Alcohol hand rub or soap and water for removal of norovirus from hands – the debate continues

J Steinmann, B Becker, B Bischoff, E Steinmann

Journal of Hospital Infection, Published Online: September 22, 2015

Tuladhar et al. described a comparison between a propanol-based hand rub (Sterillium; BODE Chemie GmbH, Hamburg, Germany) and a hand soap (Unicura Hand soap; Colgate Palmolive, Weest, The Netherlands) for efficacy against murine norovirus (MNV) as a surrogate for human norovirus in a finger pad model. They reported that MNV infectivity reduction by washing hands with soap and water was significantly higher (P = 0.004) than treating hands with the rub. No residual virus was detected after handwashing in contrast to treatment with Sterillium.