Background: The surgical team members use different methods of surgical hand antisepsis with the aim of reducing surgical site infections. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of povidone iodine hand scrubbing versus alcohol and avagard hand rubbing on reduction of microbial count among surgical team members in a Saudi Hospital. Methods: The outcome measure is the number of Colony Forming Units (CFUs) cultured from 10-digit fingertip imprints on agar plates. Seventy two volunteers underwent 3 hand preparation protocols; Protocol (A) included 3 minutes of traditional scrub by PVP-I, protocol (B) involved 3 minutes of hand rubbing, until dry with ethyl alcohol 70%. Protocol (C) included 3 minutes of hand rubbing, until dry with Avagard. Three sets of fingertip imprints were obtained for each group; before rubbing/scrubbing (R/Sc.), immediately after R/Sc., and after glove removal (GR) ie; after 3 hours. Results: Results were expressed as the number of CFUs per hand by the use of Log10 RF. No significant difference in baseline hand bacterial load was found before and immediately after hand- R/Sc. procedures among the three groups, while there a significant statistical difference in microbial count after GR (p value = 0.01) and microbial count was lesser by the use of avagard than by the use of other solutions after GR. There was a significant statistical relation between participant's occupation and Count of CFUs(p value = 0.05) and the count found to be decreased among nurses after GR. But there was no significant statistical difference between participant's years of experience and counts of CFUs. Results revealed a significant statistical correlation between performance of rubbing/scrubbing and count of CFUs among the three groups immediately post R/Sc. and after GR. Conclusion and recommendations: Surgical hand rub using avagard was significantly more effective in reducing skin colony counts compared to ethyl alcohol 70% and povidone iodine 7.5% and we recommend that avagard hand rubs could be used as a potent hand antisepsis in the operating theatre