Alcohol-free spray introduced in India to control spread of avian influenza

The Indian Foundation for Influenza (IFI) has introduced an alcohol-free hand disinfectant spray, ‘Clinister’ developed by the scientists of Japan which offers to tackle the avian influenza.

The formulation contains sodium citrate – a food additive added to acidic electrolyzed water as the principle ingredient along with other added ingredients like trisodium citrate, dehydratecetyl pyridinium chloride and lactose.

The spray was introduced in India at the national conference on “Molecular Perspectives and Therapeutic Strategies for Influenza” organised by King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research, Chennai in association with IFI. The conference was held in Chennai last week.

The spraying system was tested and proved effective in hand disinfection against bacteria, viruses and fungi in a study done at the King Institute, sources said. The institute's study shows the efficacy of Clinister in hand disinfection in the Indian situations and in bringing down the load of H5N3 virus which spreads Avian Influenza.

The IFI sources said avian influenza has been a major challenge all over the world for which a Japanese team of scientists headed by Prof Sunao Kubota has come out with an alcohol-free continuous spraying system which effectively brings down the influenza virus. This is considered to be very useful in preventing air borne infection in hospitals, laboratories, dental and other clinics. The study has been published in scientific journals.

According to them, physicians, healthcare workers, laboratory personnel, patients and the general public face a constant threat of acquiring infections in hospitals or laboratories through air borne pathogens especially the highly pathogenic influenza virus and other pathogens spread by physical contact. There are alcohol based hand disinfectants which are available to prevent infections that spread by physical contact, but they have the potential to cause damage to skin and increase the susceptibility of the skin infection. For air disinfection, there is no best method available to curtail air borne pathogens because alcohol containing sprays cannot be continuously administered in places with human inhabitants. In such situations, the alcohol-free hand disinfectants, Clinisters, are useful which contains benzalkonium chloride or triclosan.

In the conference held in Chennai, it was demonstrated that the alcohol-free citrate based disinfectant is safe for hand disinfection and it is a mist spray for reduction of air borne pathogens including avian influenza.

According to sources, Clinister is supplied by GN Corporation Co Ltd, Japan through Nichi Vision Life Sciences, Chennai.