The Principles of Medical Device Decontamination

If there may have been exposure to viruses transmissible by the blood-borne route (BBVs – blood borne viruses) then national health organisations such as the UK Health Security Agency in England should be contacted via local Health Protection Teams. They can help in incident analysis and use their surveillance to inform risk assessment and actions. Note: Attempts at sterility testing are fraught with interpretational problems and rarely contribute to investigations. If an item is not highly amenable to effecting sampling (e.g. a fluid that can be sampled aseptically by syringe), then operator contamination is probable which cannot be distinguished from “real” contamination. It is also possible that only a small proportion of items are contaminated, so a few negative sterility tests are not a reassurance of total sterility. Sterility testing generally generates more questions than it answers.

References / Sources

1 Guidance for the decontamination of intracavity medical devices: the report of a working group of the Healthcare Infection Society available at, https://www.his.org.uk/media/i4rj5pnj/guidance-for-the-decontamination- of-intracavity-medical-devices-the-report-of-a-working-group-of-the- healthcare-infection-society.pdf

[Accessed 15th Nov 2025]

169

@ 2025 Central Sterilising Club. All rights reserved. Do Not duplicate