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Yung Min
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE
ANTIM
ICROBIAL
FABRICS?
Fallacies
and
myths
on
antimicrobial
fabrics
and gar-
ments abound;
their
price,
of-
ten grossly inflated. Now,
107o
of
patients contract infections
in
hospitals, e.9., from beddings
and clothes
-
each year, cost-
ing
billions
that can
be saved
by
antimicrobial fabrics.
With
warmth and
moisture, bacteria
flourish
in between our skin
and
clothing, causing
a
bad
odor,
skin infections and
itchiness.
Two
techniques prevail: antimi-
crobial chemicals
are
painted
onto the fabrics; during the 2nd
World
War,
quaternary
ammo-
nium salts
were
used for
soldier
uniforms. As
the salts
were
readily washed away,
less
soluble ones, e.9., compounds
of phenylic acids,
were
used.
A
more popular and novel
method
incorporates the chemical
into
the fabric, e.9.,
nano-sized sil-
ver colloidal solution
or
far
in-
frared particles are
incorpo-
rated
into
the fabric
-
excellent
for preventing cross-infections.
ln order to counteract the large
number
of
false claims, China's
first State
Standard
(FA1rc023
-
2006) for distinguishing
anti-
microbial fabrics
into A, AA
and
AAA classes, was compiled as
an industry standard
-
tor a
2-
year
trial.
Consumers should
take
note of
the
rating.
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