Logo Image
|Articles|November 15, 2011

Innovative Test Method for Antimicrobial Fabrics Presented

Recent studies have found high amounts of bacteria hitching a ride on healthcare worker uniforms.  While special antimicrobial fabrics are being developed to combat this problem, a team of scientists in Washington, D.C. is developing new test methods to evaluate the emerging technologies.

The American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) 32nd Symposium on Pesticide Formulation and Delivery: Innovating Legacy Products for New Uses, held in Tampa recently, invited a team from MedStar Health Research Institute to present its work titled, The Fabric Challenge Assays: a Novel Standard for the Evaluation of the Performance of Antimicrobial Textiles.

Antimicrobial textiles are gaining interest in healthcare settings, says Matthew Hardwick, PhD, director of laboratory of clinical investigations at MedStar Health who presented to the ASTM Committee.  New product categories, especially in healthcare, need to be vetted for safety and efficacy.

While there are several standard methods available for testing antimicrobial textile efficacy, each is limited due to the artificial nature of the testing method.  Our team at MedStar Health wanted to develop a test that showed the efficacy of these fabrics in terms of reducing bacterial load in real-world scenarios, explains Hardwick.

In the real world clinical environment, there are three primary means of transmission of bacteria: aqueous splatter such as urine or blood; aerosol such as a cough or sneeze; and direct contact with infected persons or environmental surfaces. The novel fabric challenge assay is designed to mimic each mode of transmission in order to test the efficacy of antimicrobial textiles in a more real-world simulation. 
 
Our results show that the test fabric, which was treated with Semeltec antimicrobial and provided by Vestex, reduced methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by different percentages for different contact simulations -- 99 percent for aerosol, 99.9 percent for direct contact and 99.9 percent for splatter conditions, Hardwick says.  The different inoculation simulations also had different kill-time curves the Semeltec antimicrobial fabric from Vestex worked immediately in all tests.  The control fabric did not have appreciable reductions in bacteria with any test method.

As technologies advance, our test methods must advance.  The closer we get in the lab to mimicking actual use conditions, the more useful the test, says Margaret Cotton, an author of the study. 

 

 

Related to this article

View more
Infection preventionists in full PPE with children in DRC. (Image credit: author with AI)
Chasing the Bundibugyo Outbreak: How Static Numbers Hide a Moving Epidemic
Nearly 4 months into the DRC's Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak, some indicators suggest transmission may be slowing. But shifting hotspots, treatment-center capacity problems, community deaths, and incomplete surveillance data show why national case totals alone cannot determine whether containment has been achieved.
Read more
Health care workers from the US speaking with other health care workers in DRC. (Image credit: author with AI)
What Outbreak Metrics Can and Cannot Tell Us About the Ebola DRC Response
Is the Ebola outbreak in the DRC getting better? The answer depends on which numbers you examine. Several important indicators are moving in the right direction, including slower case growth and a declining Rₜ. But major gaps remain in contact tracing, testing, community deaths, safe burial coverage, and treatment capacity in some of the hardest-hit areas. ICT takes a deeper look at the latest outbreak data and why the numbers suggest cautious optimism, not victory.
Read more
Dyan Troxell, MSN, RN, director of clinical education at HandCraft Linen Services; J.J. Odom, MBA, CHESP, CMIP, T-CHEST, university director of buildings and grounds for UConn Health and chair-elect of the AHE Board; and Jenna Rivers, MPH, CPH, CIC, manager of infection prevention and control at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.
At AHE Exchange26: Building Safer, Smarter Reusable Linen Programs
At AHE Exchange 2026, ICT spoke with experts representing commercial laundry services, EVS, and infection prevention about the systems behind a successful reusable linen program. They discuss linen quality, reject rates, unnecessary waste, frontline education, data, PAR levels, infection prevention oversight, and why strong relationships between health care facilities and their laundry providers matter.
Read more
A group of students raising their hands in class during a lecture (Adobe Stock 292282454 by Mediteraneo
Once a Teacher, Always a Teacher: Why Infection Prevention Is Education
How do you celebrate an infection that never happened? That's one of the unusual challenges infection preventionists share with teachers. Both can spend their careers changing outcomes they may never see. Both educate people who don't always want to listen. Both are second-guessed. Both face burnout. And both must somehow keep remembering why they started.
Read more