Introduction:

The hand harbors different species of bacteria that may play a role in the transmission of infectious diseases. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the bacterial profile of hands and assess the efficacy of the three most common methods of hand cleansing on the reduction of that bacteria.

Materials and methods:

Hand swaps were collected from 150 adults. The identity of bacteria was done by standard microbiological procedures. Each participant applied one of three selected methods of hand cleansing namely, handwashing with water and plain soap, hand rubbing with an alcohol-based sanitizer, and hand wiping with alcohol-free hand sanitizer wipes. A second swap was collected after cleansing to determine the efficacy of each method by calculating the percentage of the reduction of isolated bacteria.

Results:

Most isolated bacteria were commensal flora like Coagulase Negative Staphylococcus (92%), and Corynebacterium spp (81.3%). Other pathogenic bacteria were isolated mainly, Staphylococcus aureus (32%), Escherichia coli (10%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2.6%), Klebsiella spp (2.6%) and Acinetobacter spp. (2%). The hand rubbing was more efficacy than handwashing without a statistically significant difference (P>0.05), and the hand wiping had lower efficacy than the other two methods with statistically significant difference (P<0.001).

Conclusions:

The hand is a serious source of infection due to the variety of bacteria on it. These bacteria can be eliminated either by handwashing with water and plain soap or hand rubbing with an alcohol-based sanitizer. Alcohol-free hand sanitizer wipes should be used just for cleaning without disinfection due to their low efficacy as a sanitizer.

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