Regardless of Disinfection, Bugs Thrive on Excessive-Contact Hospital Surfaces

— Uncommon pathogens could pose menace to immunocompromised sufferers, researchers say

by
Katherine Kahn, Workers Author, MedPage In the present day
January 11, 2024

All kinds of commonplace and weird pathogenic micro organism have been discovered on hospital surfaces in a single Texas hospital, regardless of compliance with really helpful disinfection protocols, a research discovered.

Researchers recognized 60 totally different sorts of micro organism, together with 18 well-known human pathogens, from 400 samples taken from high-touch areas throughout June and July 2022, reported Piyali Chatterjee, PhD, of the Central Texas Veterans Well being Care System in Temple, and colleagues within the American Journal of Infection Control.

Pattern websites included simulation manikins, workstations-on-wheels (WOWs), mattress rails, break room tables, and pc keyboards at nurses’ stations. Manikins and WOW handles have been the 2 most extremely contaminated surfaces, the researchers famous.

“It’s a persevering with frustration to healthcare professionals that [healthcare-associated infections] persist regardless of rigorous consideration to disinfection practices,” Chatterjee stated in a press launch.

David Weber MD, MPH, of UNC Medical Middle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and president-elect of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, instructed MedPage In the present day that the findings of the research weren’t stunning. “We do not reside in a sterile world,” he identified.

“The power of this research was the truth that they did not look only for the extra frequent organisms however at a a lot wider number of organisms,” Weber defined. “After all, lots of the organisms they discovered wouldn’t be thought of pathogens, however … it is value realizing that these micro organism are on surfaces and to what extent, as we see newer organisms infecting individuals.”

Susan Kline, MD, MPH, of the College of Minnesota Medical Faculty in Minneapolis, instructed MedPage In the present day that “the take-home message from this research is that docs, nurses, and all ancillary staff must be conscious that these surfaces within the healthcare setting do get contaminated by micro organism. Even should you did not contact the affected person, you may need touched considered one of these high-touch surfaces and due to this fact your palms ought to not be thought of clear.”

About half of the remoted hospital floor micro organism (29 out of 60) have been additionally present in medical samples collected from sufferers on the facility. Amongst these micro organism, urine was the commonest supply, adopted by pores and skin and gentle tissue, and blood.

Each gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens have been remoted, though gram-positive pathogens have been extra frequent (12 vs 6). The commonest forms of pathogenic gram-positive micro organism included Bacillus cereus group, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus, coagulase-negative Staphylococci, and Streptococcus. Widespread gram-negative pathogens remoted from the surfaces included Citrobacter freundii, Enterobacter hormaechei, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella aerogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia.

Lesser well-known pathogens included Actinomyces graevenitzii, Enterococcus saccharolyticus, and Acinetobacter spp., a few of which may trigger severe infections resembling meningitis, endocarditis, and central line-associated bloodstream infections in immunocompromised individuals.

Chatterjee and group sampled and cultured each cleaned and pre-cleaned high-touch hospital surfaces from a single medical-surgical unit throughout the afternoon after lunch. 5 infectious illness physicians and a medical microbiologist labeled the aesthetic micro organism into well-known and never well-known human pathogens.

Utilizing a laboratory database, floor isolates have been matched to medical isolates and the sources of these micro organism in sufferers. The researchers didn’t decide whether or not the medical supply was a contaminant or related to an an infection.

“Future potential options to cut back bioburden on healthcare surfaces could embrace a mixture of various approaches resembling enhanced cleansing, use of various chemical compounds together with use of hydrogen peroxide, self-disinfecting surfaces resembling copper no-touch units resembling UV-C, or handheld far-UVC units,” the authors concluded.