The India based company, Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd., has recently launched the distribution and sale of fully autoclavable mechanical pipettes. These new Proline Plus products are manufactured by Biohit, headquartered in Finland. The significance of this partnership is that Transasia (through their subsidiary Erba Diagnostic Mannheim GmbH) does business with laboratories across the entire globe. It has a well established distribution network in over 55 countries. The company brings state of the art, reliable, affordable, innovative, and high quality equipment within reach of its growing list of clientele. This wide distribution system will make the new pipette design immediately available to labs around the world.
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Pharmaceutical Technology’s informational publications cover a wide variety of topics involving sterile processing. The April issue of the Equipment and Processing Report featured a steam-sampling cart from Buzdar. It is a good example of one of the simple advances in current technology that makes process control more manageable. This manufacturer’s newest piece of stainless steel equipment is touted as requiring “no water”. Obviously it does require access to steam, but it doesn’t need a separate water source for cooling. Instead, this compact and portable machine carries its own refrigeration unit. This adequately cools the condensate and allows testing to be easily carried out at any suitable location.
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Sterilization of liquids in an autoclave can be difficult to accomplish safely and effectively. The temperature reading shows the heat of the chamber wall rather than the liquid contents. This means that the cycle time is calculated from the time that the sensor reads the appropriate starting level. At this point the liquid in the vessel may not have reached the correct heat. There is no way to tell (based on the usual reading method) whether or not the appropriate temperature is consistent throughout the load.
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In Nata, Botswana on the African continent medical supplies are scarce. The tiny clinic that serves the population of this remote village has learned to make do with whatever they can find. In December the staff posted a plea for funds to buy a new stove. They had been using an old fashioned pressure cooker to sterilize medical instruments. When the gas stove finally broke down they could no longer perform even simple surgical procedures. Turning away patients in need was heartbreaking since the nearest surgical hospital is 120 miles distant – an impossible journey for impoverished villagers. Instruments now have to be sent to the nearest location with a sterilizer (60 miles away in Gweta). Transporting the sterile items over such long distances greatly increases the risk that they will be re-contaminated during the journey back.
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The Passi City district hospital will have to try another source for its purchase of a steam sterilizer. The city of Iloilo granted the 1.1 million peso contract to someone they thought was a reputable supplier. They wound up with a piece of junk. Hopefully the procurement office will negotiate net 30 terms in the future to allow time to test equipment before handing over a check for such a sizable sum. An inspection was carried out by hospital personnel in concert with staff from the Commission on Audit (COA). The team found that the unit had no nameplate listing manufacturer information, brand name or model number. Other information was also missing. It is anyone’s guess where the machine came from. However, odds are good that its next destination will be the landfill. When hospital staff tried to fire up the equipment to perform basic testing, the defective autoclave promptly died. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently released guidance for aggressive infection control to combat the new emerging nosocomial pathogen known as CRKP. Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae is probably best known for an outbreak in Israel a few of years ago within the healthcare system there. It is one of many carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) that is within the scope of the announcement.
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LTE Scientific LTD recently unveiled a new line of 7 cylindrical laboratory autoclave models that come with an air ballast system as a standard feature. These new Touchclave-R autoclaves are easy to use because of the Touchscreen panel. At the same time, their state of the art menus with multiple levels of security prevent any unauthorized tampering with cycle settings.
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In January, the Sheikh Zayed Hospital became the second medical facility in Pakistan to build/install an autoclave for disposal of highly infectious medical waste. Steam autoclaving will now supplement incineration and chemical disinfection as the method of choice for this process. However, the equipment will have a hard time keeping up with the current workload at this busy facility.
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Advanced Sterilization Products is a division of the Ethicon Inc. (a Johnson & Johnson Company). They announced in January of 2009 that their STERRAD® CYCLESURE® biological indicator design has been significantly improved. Incubation times have been reduced from 48 hours to only 24. The faster readout results from the tests mean faster turnaround for whole sets of instrument inventories.
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TSO3, Inc. in partnership with the U.K.’s Health Protection Agency is studying low temperature decontamination methods for reusable medical devices. Their ongoing research on the use of ozone sterilization to eliminate prion contamination has now reached another milestone. The HPA uses the TSO3 Sterizone 125L to perform its research. The current method for prion inactivation is via high temperature autoclaving. This means the new equipment’s performance must meet a high standard to be considered effective. So far, the results are hopeful.
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