Effective hygiene measures in schools will make a significant difference in reducing Covid-19 transmission and enabling students and teachers to stay in education once they return after half-term, experts are agreed. As part of this, institutions are adding antimicrobial coatings that use proven silver ions additives to boost their infection control measures.
The education sector has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic and everyone is keen to see children and young people get back to normality as quickly as possible. However, schools and colleges still face the ongoing issue of maintaining the highest level of hygiene. Teachers and parents are becoming increasingly concerned about how everyone will stay protected and well once they return to the classroom.
One layer of defence that has so far been underutilised in the UK is the use of antimicrobial coatings using silver ions. At a cost of less than £10 per student, a varnish-style coating is applied to touch points by hand and works by creating a permanent disinfectant coating, which creates an environment where the pathogens cannot survive. In conjunction with regular cleaning, this raises the base level of hygiene to a standard where 80% of microbes are eradicated within 15 minutes, 90% die within 1 hour of landing on the treated surface and up to 99.99% are gone within 2 hours. The coating is permanent – it just needs to be kept clean – and lasts for up to five years. Tests in one Finnish school found that illness in the treated classroom was reduced by 50% compared with rooms that had not been treated.
Developed by UK company, Bromoco International in 2013, TOUCH Antimicrobial coating is the world’s only permanent, retrofit, hard film, crystal clear coating that provides protection against enveloped viruses and bacteria including Covid-19 (as well as SARS-CoV-2 and MSRA) for all hard surfaces. It works by incorporating silver ions and sealing them onto the surface of the material treated, which disrupts the protective outer layer of the microbe so it cannot survive on contact with the coating. It is being used effectively in many institutions and organisations throughout the UK, including high security government buildings. Businesses and factories are also applying the product to help protect their employees.
Antimicrobial coatings are not new – metal ion technology dates back as far as 2200 BC with the Greek, Egyptians and Romans being found to have used copper and silver for their antimicrobial properties. The team at Bromoco International has brought the technology into use for a 21st-century pandemic, where it can be used to counter new threats to world health.
Tony Semple, Technical Director at Bromoco International, explains: “TOUCH Antimicrobial coating is a major piece of the puzzle of ensuring schools and other public spaces and places of work have a solid, hygienically clean base level to support the existing cleaning regimes. Knowing that all surfaces in these buildings are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to protect everyone from getting ill will make it much easier to keep the country open and moving forwards. We believe the application of this extra layer of hygiene and raising the base level of protection really is a no-brainer.”
Companies are also applying the product to protect their employees; “We’ve had our colleagues’ safety as our primary focus and this is an extra string in the bow for us in terms of our safety provision for our colleagues,” adds Ailsa Cavies, Head of Health and Safety at N Brown Group PLC. “We’ve maintained the 2m social distancing throughout, we’ve installed hand washing stations and provided antibacterial gels, and implemented a whole array of other precautions on site to keep colleagues safe. So I feel TOUCH Antimicrobial really enhances and goes the extra mile for our colleagues.”
Independent accreditations support the company’s claims. Claire Kirby, Director at Innovation Hygiene Consultancy commented: “The science behind the technology in TOUCH Antimicrobial is well known and has decades of research to support it. Its effectiveness against enveloped viruses is perfect for protection against COVID-19 and Bromoco International have managed to develop this technology into a retrofit coating that is permanent, hard wearing and crystal clear that will last up to 5 years. Something no one else has been able to achieve.”
Kirby continued: “TOUCH Antimicrobial is head and shoulders above anything else currently available and offers the longest and strongest protection against COVID-19. No more finger-prints, no more bacteria or viruses…. SIMPLE!”
