Health & Medicine - Posted by Chris Bunting-U. Leeds on Thursday, October 11, 2012 11:25 - 5 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Hospital ‘superbugs’ float in the air
Hospital superbugs can float on air currents and contaminate surfaces far from infected patients’ beds, according to University of Leeds researchers. (Credit: Veer)
U. LEEDS (UK) — Coughing, sneezing, or simply shaking bed sheets can send superbugs flying, allowing them to contaminate clean surfaces.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
The findings by University of Leeds researchers may explain why, despite strict cleaning regimes and hygiene controls, some hospitals still struggle to prevent bacteria moving from patient to patient.
Hospital superbugs, such as MRSA and C. difficile, can be spread through contact. Patients, visitors or even hospital staff can inadvertently touch surfaces contaminated with bacteria and then pass the infection on to others, resulting in a great stress in hospitals on keeping hands and surfaces clean.
But the new results, published in the journal Building and Environment, seem to confirm that superbugs can fly through the air and contaminate surfaces.
PhD student Marco-Felipe King used a biological aerosol chamber, one of a handful in the world, to replicate conditions in one- and two-bedded hospital rooms. He released tiny aerosol droplets containing Staphyloccus aureus, a bacteria related to MRSA, from a heated mannequin simulating the heat emitted by a human body.
He placed open Petri dishes where other patients’ beds, bedside tables, chairs and washbasins might be and then checked where the bacteria landed and grew.
“The level of contamination immediately around the patient’s bed was high but you would expect that. Hospitals keep beds clean and disinfect the tables and surfaces next to beds,” says Cath Noakes, from the School of Civil Engineering, who supervised the work. “However, we also captured significant quantities of bacteria right across the room, up to 3.5 meters away and especially along the route of the airflows in the room.”
“We now need to find out whether this airborne dispersion is an important route of spreading infection,” adds co-supervisor Andy Sleigh.
The researchers are hoping that computer modeling will help them determine the risk. The findings have been compared to airflow simulations of the mock-up hospital rooms and the research team has shown that they are able to accurately predict how airborne particles can be deposited on surfaces.
“Using our understanding of airflow dynamics, we can now use these models to investigate how different ward layouts and different positions of windows, doors, and air vents could help prevent microorganisms being deposited on accessible surfaces,” says King.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the international design and engineering firm Arup, which designs hospitals, sponsored the study.
Source: University of Leeds
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5 Comments
yvonne hawk
My husband contracted both MRSA pneumonia and C. dificile in the hospital and, within 4 mos of entering the hospital, finally died from the MRSA pneumonia. This stuff is all too real. Moral of this story: don’t take on any extended hospital stays (from elective surgery or whatever) if you can help it. Just isn’t worth it. You’re safer outside the hospital.
It is the genuine duty of every hospital cleaner to protect the hospitals from unwanted superbugs and other harmful bacteria’s, as hospital is the only place where we found huge amount of bacterial infection easily. So hospital authorities are liable to keep their surrounding more cleanly and safe from bacterial infections, which ultimately attract patients for their treatments.
The risk of infections is almost doubled in every hospitals due to the issues of superbugs and it is the best way to spread horrible infection and diseases among the patients. Therefore patients are more conscious about their activities while getting admitted in hospitals as superbugs are flying through air and contaminate surfaces. So hospital authorities are more likely to provide better opportunities for patients to stay fit and healthy.
I did not write the above comment. The hospital I am familar with is very clean. Why and who put that other comment under my name?? Must have been a different Yvonne Hawk. I have wanted to work at my local hospital. The GSRM hospital in Corvallis OR. would have never done such a thing.
I saw a hospital cleaner ..wash out the toilet with a rag then wipe everything down with the same rag…..UUUGHHHHHH ..
I said I saw what you did ..and I want you to come back and wash the floor with clorox ..and then wash out the sink with more clorox not from the mop bucket ……I had every right to demand this cleanliness.
I will not name the hospital….
If the stuff goes on …what the heck…..should we expect.