A quantitative test method for the examination of antimycobacterial disinfection procedures

Various aspects of the test methods currently established in western industrial countries for the qualitative and to a certain extent quantitative measurement of the antimycobacterial efficacy of disinfection procedures have recently been increasingly criticized in the international literature. For this reason, a quantitative test method for suspension trials and carrier trials, which includes the test strain Mycobacterium terrae ATCC 15755, has been developed. Experience with the new methods has proved them easy to learn and to reproduce. Before the methods, presented here in detail, can be recommended to the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hygiene und Mikrobiologie, DGHM) as official testing procedures, their acceptability should be tested in a multicenter study. Taking the results thus obtained into consideration, recommendations for the reduction factors required for the declaration of a safe antimycobacterial disinfection procedure should be made.