In our present Corona virus dominated social landscape, contact infection is our pre-eminent daily concern; with frequent handwashing recommended to break the onward transmission from touching handles and other equipment, therefore reducing new infections, and potentially saving lives. This very mainstream headline concern reflects the ever-present issue of hospital-acquired infections, which has recently been highlighted in a UK report, suggesting that up to 5,000 patients die each year, in England alone, from these hospital-acquired infections, with an estimated cost of £1 billion. Similar situations are reported elsewhere such as in New York.
Therefore, it is of global importance to focus on the hygiene of hand-operated equipment in medical/bio-chemical and laboratory environments, including disability aids, food processing and pharmaceutical, catering and public fittings. In these situations, Elesa offer an effective aid to hygiene, with their recently expanded high-performing SAN (sanitary) range of handles, knobs, levers, clamping handles and similar, produced with exactly this situation in mind. Their range expansion includes new cylindrical handles e.g. for operating handwheels, knurled grip knobs, adjustable clamping handles, wing nuts and solid hand knobs – all suitable for equipment operation or adjustment.
SAN products are proven to prevent the proliferation of microbes, bacteria and fungi on the product surface by controlled release of silver ions, thus providing a long-term anti-microbial action in critical environments.
Silver has long been recognized for its efficiency in this role by damaging microbial cell walls - and even now - recent research has revealed a mechanism whereby the silver ions have been shown to inhibit operation of microbial flagella.
The Elesa manufacturing team have managed to develop a sophisticated injection-moulding material with this silver inclusion, and with stainless steel inserts, suitable for use even in sterilization cycles up to 130°C. SAN line components are available in white or black with SAN logo laser engraved to clearly identify them.
Tests on material samples to ISO 22196:2011 show considerable effectiveness for four different types of bacteria and the more difficult to eliminate fungus: Escherichia Coli – 99.9%, Staphylococcus Aureus - 99.9%, Klebseilla Pneumoniae – 99.8%, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa – 99.9% and Candida Albicans – 98.9%.
Elesa focus on making their own tooling and moulds, also developing and testing materials with major suppliers. SAN lines are supported in the UK with stock and technical teams ensuring advise is always available.
Further information regarding Elesa products may be found here.
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