“The ability to stop hospital infections from spreading greatly depends on the way and quality of disinfection. Thanks to our inventions, our toolkit has been expended with a portable UV disinfection device and an autonomous version of it will also be added in the future. A major advantage of these appliances is that they are not labour intensive at all and ensure consistent disinfection quality” – emphasized Zsuzsanna Nagy, Director of Hygiene Services.

She also added about the leverage of this development: UV disinfection, compared to disinfection with H₂O₂ or O₃ gases, is a much quicker technology.

Here, disinfection works without chemicals and the room is immediately available for use after the end of the cleaning process. In addition, there is no need for long preparations, as opposed to methods using gas, where the air of the room must be separated.

Disinfection between treatments

Zsuzsanna Nagy told us that in patient rooms where patients come and go, and there is a high risk of infections, the UV robot will be a safe tool to use. In such rooms, naturally, manual cleaning must be performed as a first step to remove all the dirt that is able to block UV light.

This device works much faster than disinfection with hydrogen peroxide or ozone which takes about three hours.

Biologist dr. Ágnes Ősz added: “the autonomous UV disinfection equipment is intended to be used mainly in hospitals. Since, in contrast to atomization methods, UV light is not able to get into every little gap, first a 3D model is used to map the room. The robot will follow this map to travel the given area.

The advantage of the UV disinfection robot is that the ventilation system does not need to be closed and gaps around the doors do not have to be sealed before using the equipment and it takes the device, for example, between one wound dressing procedure and the next, no more than fifteen minutes to disinfect surfaces which patients get in contact with or which may become contaminated during wound dressing or examination.

The robot disifects every place where UV light can penetrate

The equipment is built on the germicidal ability of UVC light which exerts its effect through the genetic material of microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, spores and fungi). This method cleans not only surfaces but also the air of the room.

“As a result of the radiation, the stability of the genome is disrupted, which leads to cell death. UVC light can cause short or long term damage to the skin and eyes of humans, as a consequence, the protection of the staff is of utmost importance: care must be taken to keep everybody out of the room while UV disinfection is in progress” – emphasized dr. Ágnes Ősz.

The full article about B+N Referencia Zrt.’s project (in Hungarian) is available here.

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