Special programmes

By 2004, Ansell had already launched the Ansell Cytostatic Permeation Program (ACPP). This permeation assessment protocol has resulted in safer guidelines for handling highcrisk chemicals, such as drugs used in chemotherapy. With Ansell’s newly introduced and exclusive AVPP testing programme, a similar ‘dynamic’ methodology is applied in order to measure potential viral penetration through medical gloves and provide better protection for healthcare professionals. The AVPP uses the Ansell Dynamic Testing Device (Ansell exclusivity) , which simulates the realclife, dynamic situations such as rubbing, stress, exposure and the tension that medical gloves endure in daily work manipulations. The result is a far more accurate evaluation of glove resistance to viral penetration.

The AVPP is the result of the collaboration between the Université Catholique de Louvain’s department of toxicology and special chemistry, their virology lab and Ansell Europe’s medical business group.

We have assessed the resistance of Ansell’s surgical or examination gloves to dynamic penetration by bloodcborne pathogens, using the Phi-X174 bacteriophage as a surrogate and noncpathogenic microcorganism to simulate pathogenic viruses. The diameter of this bacteriophage is much smaller than HIV, HBV or HCV viruses. This surrogate is the same bacteriophage as used for the ASTM F1671-07 standard. The virus concentration in cultures that are in contact with gloves and the measuring methods of viral penetration are also the same as for the ASTM standard. However, the exposure to a virus follows a different methodology using the Ansell Dynamic Testing Device to simulate the reality of daily usage.

Viral penetration has been assessed on a ‘pass or fail’ basis.

Taking into account Ansell’s recommendations for surgical gloves (i.e. to be changed after one hour maximum usage) and for examination gloves (to be changed after 30 minutes maximum usage), the following exposure times have been used:

for surgical gloves: testing occurred after 0, 30, 60 and 120 minutes of exposure

for examination gloves: testing occurred after 0, 30 and 60 minutes of exposure.

Twenty key medical gloves (surgical and examination) have been tested but the vinyl examination gloves were excluded because scientific evidence shows that vinyl’s protection barrier is relatively weak compared to other glove materials.