The Challenge of Disinfection and Sterilization in Veterinary Practice

Dear Colleagues,

The challenge of disinfection and sterilization in veterinary practice is critical in ensuring the health and safety of both animal patients and veterinary staff.

Infection control is crucial in veterinary medicine for providing high-quality patient care and guaranteeing a safe working environment for staff in shelters, veterinary hospitals, and clinics. An essential component of infection control and biosecurity programs is the maintenance of high standards of hygiene, to provide quality care at any medical facility, including mitigation of the risk of nosocomial infection. The choice of disinfection and sterilization methods and the conditions in which they are used are critically important.

Disinfection and sterilization protocols must balance the disease-suppressing benefits of sanitation processes with the negative impact of overzealous procedures that inflict unnecessary stress on animals and contribute to disease expression.

This Special Issue plans to collect the most recent advances in disinfection and sterilization methods in infection control practice in veterinary centres and shelters. Original research articles and comprehensive reviews that cover sterilization, ultraviolet disinfection, ozone disinfection, new disinfectants, hand disinfection (e.g., surgical hand antisepsis), the role of organic load/debris on the efficacy of disinfection procedures, advanced monitoring systems, and education and training in veterinary practice or shelter medicine are welcome in this Special issue. 

Dr. Ana Cláudia Coelho
Dr. Luís Cardoso
Dr. Paula A. Oliveira
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Hygiene is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• disinfection
• environmental hygiene
• infection control
• infectious diseases
• large-animal practice
• sanitation
• small-animal practice
• shelters
• sterilization
• veterinary hospital