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What to Consider When Comparing UV Sterilization Devices
UV sterilization is a rapidly growing, valuable option for preventing the spread of Coronavirus and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Although you may have questions regarding what UV sterilization is and what it can do for your healthcare facility, there is no doubt that UV sterilization is amazingly effective in eliminating infectious bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
UV sterilization provides a sanitary workspace and is an incredibly powerful disinfectant. It can be confusing to figure out which UV sanitizer cabinet comes with the best device in your facility.
This guide will help you understand what to look out for when comparing UV sterilization devices and what device will help you protect your staff and patients.
Why Use UV Sterilization?
Having been discovered in 1879, UV sterilization is not a new technology. For example, we now have handheld UV light sterilization devices in the market. From the time of discovery, more studies were done to establish the exact beneficial nature of UV for sterilization purposes. Sterilization has been used to disinfect and clean infectious spaces and things like water. UV light has a shorter wavelength than visible light and can penetrate and destroy the bodies of viruses and bacteria.
Where Can UV be Used?
Even though UV sterilization is used as a supplemental infection control strategy for almost any situation, the effectiveness of the sterilization makes other specialized spaces accessible as well.
One of the best spaces for UV utilization is in hospital construction and renovation settings. Maintaining hospital worksites from spreading pathogens to other patients is vital for infection control solutions. UV sterilization techniques such as having a handheld UV sterilizer help give a standard that can be hard for manual cleaning to meet. By providing a regular procedure for disinfection, UV sterilization in hospitals is crucial.
What Type of UV Light is Best?
Most UV sterilization devices utilize UV-C light as the source of their disinfecting power. Notably, UV-C light is an efficient solution for sterilization. That is why it is the most widely used light type. However, it can cause some severe damage as well. UV-C light can penetrate human skin, causing damage or injury to the person using it, if not used cautiously. Additionally, UV-C light can damage certain plastics and rubber materials over time.
A better light solution that may be used in a handheld UV light is the Far-UV Sterilray. Far-UV uses various wavelengths of the UV spectrum to give the same disinfecting strength as UV-C without the dangerous side effects. Far-UV works faster and disinfects more quickly than UV-C lamps, thus, creating greater efficiency.