What does “kills 99.9999%” actually mean?
It’s now common to see claims of log reduction on disinfecting and sanitising products, 99% kill rate, 99.99%, kill rate, 99.9999% kill rate. Log 3, Log 5 and so on. But what does this actually mean for the you?
From the outside 99.9% seems pretty effective, is it really?
Log Kill effectively is the efficacy of the product. This term comes from the logarithm scale which is used to indicate a percentage kill rate. With every step, the number of pathogens present is reduced by 90%.
The below example is assuming 1 million bacteria are present on a surface.
- 1-Log reduction (90%) would bring this level down by 90%, leaving 100,000 bacteria.
- 2-log reduction (99%) would reduce this by 99% leaving 10,000 bacteria
- 3-log reduction (99.9%) would reduce this by 99.9% leaving 1,000 bacteria
- 4-log reduction (99.99%) would reduce this by 99.99% leaving 100 bacteria
- 5-log reduction (99.999%) would reduce this by 99.999% leaving 10 bacteria
- 6-log reduction (99.9999%) would reduce this by 99.9999% leaving 1 bacteria
Bacteria cells grow by multiplying, in ideal conditions they can double in as little as 20 minutes, therefore if the reduction isn’t at an optimum level bacteria, germs and viruses can grow very quickly meaning the area requires treatment often and will carry the risk of infection.
All our products are laboratory tested to 6-log reduction. Alcohol-free, non-toxic, non-hazardous, not harmful to humans, animals and the environment.