Inoculations and cleaning the area first.

[galliton]

Can anyone advise please if it is standard practice now NOT to wipe the area with an alcohol wipe before giving an inoculation?

skin. Studies have shown that cleaning the skin with isopropyl alcohol reduces the bacterial count, but there is evidence that disinfecting makes no difference to the incidence of bacterial complications of injections (Del Mar et al., 2001; Sutton et al., 1999).

Standard practice to not clean, it is negligible risk.

I was taught not to clean.

Nurse here. We wipe only “if visibly dirty”. As long as the needle is sterile there’s no risk, and alcohol dries the skin out so might make things worse.

Thanks so much for responding! It is good to know that it was not some lack of correct procedure and hygiene and it is considered good practice.

Nurse here, I wasn’t taught to clean the area first.

I work with vaccination team & no we do not wipe the skin first, have not done so for years.

I trained in 1992 and at that time in my area was taught to clean the area. Then some time later it was discontinued- no idea when - vaguely I recall being told it either made no difference or if anything was slight increased risk of introducing dirt/risk of infection.

i saw a weird news headline the other day (weird click bait one that I couldn’t verify) claiming that someone had died when their injection site wasn’t pre-swabbed/wiped?!