What is the impact of disinfectants on environmental testing?

The environmental testing program is one of the essential elements for controlling the quality of the pharmaceutical production environment. It is therefore essential to employ monitoring solutions capable of detecting any deviation which might lead to loss of this control. In practical terms, environmental control relies mainly on the use of agar culture media which must permit the recovery of all potential living microorganisms but also neutralization of any disinfectant residues which can inhibit the growth of some strains, while supporting a level of growth that can be seen by an operator.

The quality of test results depends on the performance of these media as very clearly does the pertinence of the resultant trend analyses. But validating culture media that are able to recover stressed bacteria from the environment in a cleanroom is not so simple! To gain a better understanding of the interaction between culture media and the disinfectants dedicated to environmental control, we have studied the properties of the biocides most commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry and have suggested a methodology to evaluate their impact on the performance of these media.

In relation to the above, Laurent LEBLANC has written an interesting article for the magazine La Vague. The article can be found here.

Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle