For how long should the solution be used?

When it is freshly made up, 1% ViralFX™ solution should be stable for 7 days. Good infection control practice indicates that disinfectant solution should be changed daily, but this really is wasteful and far too expensive for most hospitals and laboratories to consider. We therefore recommend that ViralFX™ solution is made up fresh at the beginning of each working week (Monday) and replaced every Monday morning.

Of course, if the solution should lose colour within the intervening 7 days the solutions must be replaced immediately.

When ViralFX™ solution is used for disinfecting metal instruments, experience indicates that it should be replaced every 20 uses. When it is used for cleaning heavily contaminated instruments it should be replaced for every cleaning cycle if a large amount of organic material is being released on eachcleaning cycle.

Why does ViralFX™ solution sometimes lose colour in a matter of days?

ViralFX™ solution is designed to last for at least 7 days. Over-exposure of a solution, however, to organic material or metal instruments can cause oxidising activity to be lost in a shorter time than this and this is reflected by the pink colour of the solution being lost. At this point of course the solution must be discarded and replaced with fresh solution. There are other occasions when the solution loses colour:

a) New plastic bottles or containers may have traces of mould-release agent (chemicals added during the manufacturing process). Interaction with the dye within ViralFX™ can cause the dye to be lost even though the solution is still active.

b) If ViralFX™ solution is made up in a container with traces of an incompatible chemical within it (e.g. bleach) then the solution may lose colour.

c) It is important that users discard ViralFX™ solution properly and rinse the container before replenishing the solution. Merely adding powder and water to the remains of an old ViralFX™ solution will cause the colour to be lost sooner than if the solution is made up completely fresh within a clean container.

We therefore can see that it might be possible for ViralFX™ to lose its pink colour whilst still retaining its activity. It is most important to point out that it is not possible for ViralFX™ solution to lose its activity but still retain its pink colour. The important conclusion of this is that the consumer is always protected - if the solution has lost its colour then it has lost its activity and must be thrown away immediately.

Also, solution life will vary depending upon its exposure to organics and UV light. Can I make up ViralFX™ holding solutions? ViralFX™ solution of course should be made up in the main at 1% concentration. Rather than make up large amounts of 1% solution at once. some users would find it more convenient to make up more concentrated solutions in one batch and then dilute this down as needed. This concentrated solution is known as the “holding solution”.

Unfortunately, the maximum solubility of ViralFX™ is 4%. Therefore, if someone makes up what they think is 20% ViralFX™ holding solution and then dilute this down 20 times to give 1%, they are in fact diluting 20 x fold a 4% solution and are ending up with a 0.2% solution.

Therefore, ViralFX™ cannot be used to make up holding solutions.