Evaluation of Common Antimicrobials against Clinical Isolates: An In Vitro Study

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Purpose: In this era of COVID-19, one of the most effective protective measures to prevent respiratory diseases is maintaining hand hygiene. Moreover, the use of hand sanitizer, hand wash, antiseptics, and disinfectants increased abruptly in this outbreak. Materials & Methods: An in vitro antimicrobial potential of twelve antimicrobials were chosen for this study. They were tested for their antibacterial activity using disk diffusion and agar well diffusion methods against eleven clinical isolates from urine, wounds, tracheal aspirate, and sputum. Results: Clinical isolates were presumptively identified using standard microbiological procedures as Escherichia coli, Klebsiella sp., Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter sp., and Streptococcus sp. Among all the antimicrobials, Savlon (family size) antiseptic disinfectant showed the highest zone of inhibition (ZOIs) against most of the bacterial isolates, followed by hand sanitizer Hexisol. Whereas, the least antimicrobial activity was observed by Savlon hand wash, Germ Kill hand sanitizer, and Dabur hand sanitizer among all the tested products. Conclusions: The variability in performance of those twelve products against bacterial pathogens revealed an urge to validate the antibacterial activity of antimicrobials and systematic monitoring of their effectiveness and uniformity in activity against pathogenic microbes.