Blood and Tissue Post-Sanitization Verification

Hi Forum.



I would appreciate any input on the following:

In the event of an injury in the production area, is there any way to verify the effectiveness and sanitation status of affected surfaces post cleanup? Would ATP surface swabbing be an effective or acceptable means to verify the absence of possible blood or tissue? Would regular swabbing and plating suffice? Bearing in mind the potential for bloodborne pathogens including microbes, cells, viruses, and proteins released during an injury, are there any guidelines or references that address adequate recovery/sampling techniques for post-cleaning verification and or surface area sizes? Current literature I have come across, including hospital guides (as facilites that would deal with blood/tissue regularly) address validation of the disinfecting agents and of the cleaning procedures beforehand. However, I have found little to address how to ensure the cleaning is good after being performed but prior to resuming production.


Thank you,

John S.

Hi Forum.

I would appreciate any input on the following:

In the event of an injury in the production area, is there any way to verify the effectiveness and sanitation status of affected surfaces post cleanup? Would ATP surface swabbing be an effective or acceptable means to verify the absence of possible blood or tissue? Would regular swabbing and plating suffice? Bearing in mind the potential for bloodborne pathogens including microbes, cells, viruses, and proteins released during an injury, are there any guidelines or references that address adequate recovery/sampling techniques for post-cleaning verification and or surface area sizes? Current literature I have come across, including hospital guides (as facilites that would deal with blood/tissue regularly) address validation of the disinfecting agents and of the cleaning procedures beforehand. However, I have found little to address how to ensure the cleaning is good after being performed but prior to resuming production.

Thank you,

John S.

Hi John,

ATP is present in blood and tissue so ATP swabbing should work, are you referring to RTE foods & can you give us a scenario?

Regards,

Tony

Thanks for your input Tony.

Our production lines are mostly dry powder fills for protein drink mixes, so they do not undergo any additional sterilization processes. Think mixing and packaging. So in that sense they are RTE. As for the scenario, let's say a limb injury such as a cut or avulsion during machine maintenance or a non-routine intervention. After such an event, we would clean for all visible signs of soil, blood, etc. and then sanitize thoroughly with an FDA approved disinfectant. While we are incorporating routine environmental monitoring procedures including surface swabbing, I just want to make sure that these suffice to verify post-incident cleaning in consideration of special pathogen types.



Thanks again,



John Schrils

Hi John,

ATP is present in blood and tissue so ATP swabbing should work, are you referring to RTE foods & can you give us a scenario?

Regards,

Tony

Thanks for your input Tony.

Our production lines are mostly dry powder fills for protein drink mixes, so they do not undergo any additional sterilization processes. Think mixing and packaging. So in that sense they are RTE. As for the scenario, let's say a limb injury such as a cut or avulsion during machine maintenance or a non-routine intervention. After such an event, we would clean for all visible signs of soil, blood, etc. and then sanitize thoroughly with an FDA approved disinfectant. While we are incorporating routine environmental monitoring procedures including surface swabbing, I just want to make sure that these suffice to verify post-incident cleaning in consideration of special pathogen types.

Thanks again,

John Schrils

Hi John,

Sounds fine so document your procedure accordingly with a sign off record.

It seems to me that risk of cuts etc. is minimal compared to an operation such as hand trimming. Do you get many incidents?

I am assuming that you also conduct medical screening of employees? this would assist in reducing any risk.

Kind regards,

Tony

Dear John Schrils,

Slightly OT but with respect to a procedure, the attachment below is a large set of farm oriented SOPs/policies so perhaps slightly more restrictive than postgate varieties however the content of SOP 08.03 might be of interest.

I suppose a full treatment of the situation you depict would also involve the handling of an "incident" which has its own typical requirements, eg a no-entry surround space policy.

 Farm GAP SOPs.doc   48.5KB   108 downloads

Rgds / Charles.C

PS- and here's another designed for a restaurant -
 Standard Operating Procedure Contact with Blood and Bodily Fluids1.pdf   25.82KB   236 downloads

Thank you both for your input. To answer your question Tony, no we actually don't have many incidents. In fact, only recently we experienced the first of any kind of serious nature which is why I sought guidance and appreciate all that the forum has had to offer. Naturally, QA has been very closely involved. Many thanks again and Merry Christmas.

Regards,

John Schrils