5.1 Hand hygiene is considered one of the most important measures for preventing the spread of infectious microorganisms and is critical for reducing the incidence of food-borne disease. Food-handling settings are unique in that moderate to heavy soil load present on hands often can influence the ability of a product to remove or kill microorganisms (3, 4). Test methods are needed for assessing the efficacy of hand hygiene products under conditions representative of those encountered in a food-handling environment.

5.2 This test method is specifically designed to evaluate the effectiveness of food-handler products to kill and remove bacteria from experimentally-contaminated hands under conditions of moderate to heavy organic soil load. The inclusion of soils typical of food service setting makes this a methodology more appropriate than Test Method E1174, which was designed to evaluate healthcare personnel hand washes and does not include an option to include soil (4).